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 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 ruled that the
Iranian Government
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran ( fa, نظام جمهوری اسلامی ایران, Neẓām-e jomhūrī-e eslāmi-e Irān, known simply as ''Neẓām'' ( fa, نظام, lit=the system) among its supporters) is the ruling state a ...
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, waited on the main highway running from Ashkelon
Ashkelon or Ashqelon (; Hebrew: , , ; Philistine: ), also known as Ascalon (; Ancient Greek: , ; Arabic: , ), is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border wit ...
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
Kfar Darom ( he, כְּפַר דָּרוֹם, ''lit.'' South Village), was a kibbutz and an Israeli settlement within the Gush Katif bloc in the Gaza Strip.
History
Kfar Darom was founded on 250 dunams of land (about 25 hectares or 60 acres) pu ...
. At the moment he rammed the bus, he flipped a trigger switch in the steering column, detonating a bomb in his car.[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. Imad Abu Amouna was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine ( ar, حركة الجهاد الإسلامي في فلسطين, ''Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn''), known in the West simply as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a Palestinian Islamist pa ...
militant who had grown tired of waiting for his "martyrdom operation" and instead volunteered with Hamas. Nobody was killed, but thirty soldiers were wounded. The bomb used by Amouna was designed by 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 sovere ...
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