The Beit Lid suicide bombing, (also named Beit Lid massacre) was a double

suicide attack A suicide attack is any violent Strike (attack), attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has suicide, accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have oc ...

by the

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 par ...

against Israeli soldiers at the

Beit Lid Junction The HaSharon Junction (), commonly known as Beit Lid Junction (), is a key road junction in the Sharon region of Israel. It intersects Highway 4 and Highway 57. The junction serves as a large transportation hub for dozens of Egged and Kavim bu ...

on January 22, 1995. It was the first suicide attack by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Background

In 1994, Hani Abed, a

operative, brokered an alliance between

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...

and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (Hani was later assassinated by Israel). As part of the alliance, Hamas's chief bombmaker,

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 ...

, built the three bombs used by Islamic Jihad for the Beit Lid suicide attack. Each was made using plumber's

pipe Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to: Objects * Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules ** Piping, the use of pipes in industry * Smoking pipe ** Tobacco pipe * Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circular ...

(one foot long and eight inches (203 mm) wide) and five kilograms of military-grade

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

, surrounded by nails.Katz, 166-167 The Beit Lid junction is a well-known waypoint towards

Netanya Netanya (also known as Natanya, he, נְתַנְיָה) is a city in the Northern Central District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between Poleg stream and Wingate I ...

. Strategically, it is an important crossroads between

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

and

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

located on Highway 4. "On Sunday mornings, Beit Lid was swamped with thousands of young soldiers and aging reservists heading back to military duty from weekend leaves". Ashmoret Prison is located in the southwest corner of the Beit Lid junction. At the time of the bombing,

Ahmed Yassin Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin ( ar, الشيخ أحمد إسماعيل حسن ياسين; 1 January 1937 – 22 March 2004) was a Palestinian politician and imam who founded Hamas, a militant Islamist and Palestinian nationalist organiz ...

, founder of

, was being held there.

The attack

On 22 January 1995, at approximately 9:30 am, a Palestinian suicide bomber, disguised as an Israeli soldier, approached the bus stop at the Beit Lid junction in central Israel. The bus stop was full of Israeli soldiers who were on their way to their bases after their weekend vacation. The suicide bomber walked into the crowd and detonated the hidden explosives belt he was wearing. About three minutes later a second suicide bomber exploded at the same spot, killing and injuring people wounded in the first explosion, as well as bystanders who had rushed to the scene to assist the victims of the first explosion.

Aftermath

Israeli Prime Minister

Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until h ...

toured the bombing site the next day, walking within yards of a kit bag containing a third bomb. Shaaker had left it there for a third suicide bomber, Shahdi Abed al-Rahim, who never made it to the junction. al-Rahim was to have used the bomb to kill Rabin and the Shabak agents accompanying him. The bomb was later recovered, and provided investigators with more evidence implicating Ayyash.Katz, 168

References

Bibliography

* Katz, Samuel. ''The Hunt for the Engineer''. Lyons Press, 2002.

External links

"Suicide bomb kills 19 at Israel road junction"
''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Pulit ...

''. January 23, 1995
"Two-Stage Bombing Kills 19 At Israeli Military Bus Stop"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. January 23, 1995
"Blast kills 19 in Israel"
'' Sun Journal''. January 23, 1995
"Double Bombing Kills 19 Israelis, Wounds 60"
''

Times Daily The ''TimesDaily'' is the daily newspaper for Florence, Alabama. ''The TimesDaily'' covers a four-county region in Alabama including Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, and Lawrence counties, as well as portions of southern Tennessee and northeast ...

''. January 23, 1995
"Interview With a Fanatic"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...