The Kfar Darom bus attack was a 1995 suicide attack on an
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i bus carrying civilians and soldiers to Kfar Darom, an
Israeli settlement
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...
in the Gaza Strip.
The attack killed seven Israeli soldiers and one American civilian.
The Shaqaqi faction of the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing.
A United States
Federal district judge
In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. Cou ...
ruled that the
Iranian Government had provided financial aid to the group that carried out the attack and were therefore responsible for the murder of the U.S. citizen.
[James Dao]
"Judgment for Terrorism Is $248 Million"
''The New York Times'' (12 March 1998). The court ordered the Government of Iran to pay the victim's family $247.5 million in damages.
[
]
The attack
On the morning of 9 April 1995, Khaled Mohammed Khatib, a construction worker from the Nuseirat refugee camp
Nuseirat ( ar, مخيّم النصيرات) is a Palestinian refugee camp located in the middle of the Gaza Strip, five kilometers north-east of Deir al-Balah. The refugee camp is in the Deir al-Balah Governorate, Gaza Strip. According to the Pa ...
, waited on the main highway running from Ashkelon to the settlements in the Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
. At 11:45 AM, he rammed Egged bus 36 carrying more than 60 Israeli soldiers and civilian passengers to the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom.[Katz, 184] Seven Israeli soldiers and one American civilian (named Alisa Flatow) were killed and 52 passengers were wounded.
Subsequent attack
Two hours later, Imad Abu Amouna used a suicide car-bomb against an Israeli police-escorted convoy of cars driving towards the Netzarim settlement.Yahya Ayyash
Yahya Abd-al-Latif Ayyash ( ar, يحيى عياش) (6 March 1966 – 5 January 1996) was the chief bombmaker of Hamas and the leader of the West Bank battalion of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. In that capacity, he earned the nickname ''the E ...
.
Lawsuit
The family of the American citizen killed in the attack sued the government of Iran, and in 1998 a Federal district judge ordered the Iranian government to pay $247.5 million in damages to the family.[James Dao]
"Judgment for Terrorism Is $248 Million"
''The New York Times'' (12 March 1998).
See also
* Palestinian political violence
Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence perpetrated for political ends in relation to the State of Palestine or in connection with Palestinian nationalism. Common political objectives include self-determination in and soverei ...
References
*
Further reading
*
External links
In Memory of Alisa Flatow
{{Palestinian militancy attacks in the 1990s
Arab–Israeli conflict
Palestinian suicide bomber attacks against buses
Attacks on buses by Palestinian militant groups
1995 in the Palestinian territories