Quebec's Jews On Israeli Solidarity Trip Following Terror Attacks

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem----September 2.....Senior leaders of Quebec's Jewish community have departed for Beersheva, Israel, Montreal's sister city through the Jewish Agency's Partnership 2000 program. They will visit the sites of the two Palestinian terror attacks which took place on Tuesday that murdered 16 Israelis and injured 100.

The Canadian delegation includes Federation-Combined Jewish Appeal Executive Vice- president Danyael Cantor, past president Marilyn Blumer, and Rabbis Reuben Poupko and Chaim Steinmetz.
Montreal's partnership with Be'ersheva - B'nai Shimon has supported the purchase of trauma room equipment, ambulances, and other medical equipment in use at the Soroka Hospital Centre in Be'ersheva, where yesterday's blast victims are being treated. Soroka is the major hospital serving the population of southern Israel.

Through the Israeli Canadian partnership arrangement, Soroka's executive director and emergency room chief visited Montreal hospitals last year to share expertise. Other programs supported through the partnership with Montreal include counselling and support programs for Israeli victims of terror.

Palestinian suicide bombers, working with the direct consent of Yasser Arafat, blew up two buses in Beer Sheva on Tuesday, murdering at least 17 Israelis and wounding more than 100.

The twin terror blasts were claimed by both Yasser Arafat and the Islamic terror group Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with top security officials and is planning further talks today.

"Israel will continue fighting terror with all its might," Sharon said, pledging to push forward with Israel's planned peace move withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The explosions came just hours after he presented the Israel right wing Likud party with the most detailed timetable yet for the pullout.

The buses burst into flames about 100 yards apart near a bustling intersection in Beersheba, the largest city in southern Israel. Hamas issued a leaflet in Hebron, the closest Palestinian city to Beersheba, saying the attack was avenging Israel's assassinations of two of its leaders earlier this year. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat took to the airwaves immediatly after the terror attack and chanted: "Now we will move onto Jerusalem." Arafat, while speaking peace in English, has consistently incited both adults and children in Arabic to become terror suicide bombers.

"People were screaming and yelling. Everybody was running," said witness Tzvika Schreter, a 50-year-old college lecturer.


A murdered Israeli civilian hangs from a window after a Palestinian terror bomb blasts
ripped through two buses in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Photo: Reuters

"The Palestinian interest requires a stop to harming all civilians so as not give Israel pretext to continue its aggression against our people," Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said in a statement in English. In Arabic, Arafat praised the terror attack as a "justified weapon against the Zionists."

Israeli police, fire and emergency medical rescue workers scoured the scene, cleaning up body parts and scattered pieces of the wreckage as dozens of onlookers gathered nearby. A hand with a ring lay on the ground, and blood was splattered on the walls of the mangled buses.

Police said the barbaric scene was complicating the recovery of bodies and warned the death toll could rise. They said the 17 people did not include the bombers. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said 30 of the wounded were in serious or moderate condition.

Authorities stepped up security throughout Beersheba after the attacks, placing checkpoints on major roads and snarling traffic coming in and out of the city.

In the Gaza Strip, Muslim leaders praised the "heroic operation" over mosque loudspeakers.

Palestinian terrorists haven't carried out a major attack inside Israel since March 14, when 11 people were murdered in the port of Ashdod. After that attack, Israel assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Hamas has repeatedly pledged to avenge their deaths, but had taken little action before Tuesday.

"If you thought that the martyrdom of our leaders would weaken our missions and discourage us from Jihad, then you are dreaming," the Hamas leaflet said.

Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have carried out more than 100 suicide bombings in Israel over the past four years, but the pace of attacks has slowed considerably this year.

Israel has attributed the slowdown to its success in fighting terrorists and its anti-terror fence not a lack of effort by armed Palestinian groups.

Israel has arrested or killed dozens of terrorists in recent months, maintains dozens of security roadblocks in the West Bank and places security guards near busy bus stops in Israeli cities.

But Israeli officials Tuesday repeatedly cited the security fence as the primary reason for the slowdown. The structure of concrete and barbed wire, which is about one-quarter complete, has not yet reached the Hebron area.

"Unfortunately Israel has to lose more innocent civilians to prove to the world the necessity and justice of the fence," said Dr. Dore Gold, a former Israeli Ambassador and senior adviser to Sharon.

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY