Israel Suffers More Terrorism As Two Teenagers Are Murdered

Photo: AP

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem-----February 16, 2002........It was a quiet and cool evening in the sleepy town of Karnei Shomron. Teenagers gathered for pizza and gossip at a local shopping mall. As these Israeli children were talking and enjoying a Saturday night, an Arab terrorist walked up to the restaurant and blew himself up killing two teenage girls and wounding over 30 other civilians.

The shopping mall in Karnei Shomron is not a military base nor were these teenage girls guilty of any crime. Their only "crime" for the terrorists was that they were Jewish.
Israel again had sustained another barbaric act of Islamic terrorism. These senseless terrorist attacks in Israel are not issues concerning land or real estate - it's totally focused on converting all that is Western to Islamic beliefs.
The World Trade Center in New York was not "occupied territory".

The two young teenagers have been identified as Nehemia Amar and Keren Satsky, both 15, of Ginot Shomron, police said. The force of the terror blast severely damaged the shopping mall with shards of glass, twisted metal, hanging wires and body parts - people's clothes drenched in blood were seen everywhere. A children's coin-operated ride, a purple horse, stood unharmed amid the destruction.

Karnei Shomron resident Cy Polski, originally from Staten Island in New York, said the mall was crowded with teen-agers at the time of the blast. ``You could call it the neighborhood hangout. It's sickening. I saw blood spattered on the pavement as far back as the swimming pool, about 150 meters away,'' said Polski.

Security cameras caught the terrorist on film near the pizzeria before the blast, and investigators are inspecting the tape to determine how he entered. The cameras however did not capture the blast itself. Witnesses at the scene were also angry that their appeared to be no police and or security guards in the immediate area. One eyewitness screamed at a regional council head who was being interviewed on TV that the entire area was wide open and that the "terrorists could easily walk in and walk out" without being questioned.

Magen David Adom ambulance teams arrived minutes after the attack and took the wounded to Hasharon Hospital, Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba, Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, and Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer. Six of those hurt suffered moderate wounds, while another 17 were lightly wounded.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which had just announced that they would end suicide terrorism in Israel, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Al Jazeera television station, saying it was carried out by Sadak Ahad Abdel-Haq of Kalkilya.

The open air shopping mall was opened several months ago and at the time of the blast at 7:45 p.m. was crowded with shoppers. Police and security officials estimate the bomb contained approximately 10 kilos of explosives.

Rachel Cohen was tending to a flower arrangement in her store when the bomb exploded, and was later taken to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba suffering from shock. Her husband was wounded in the head and back, she said.

"I was in the store and my husband, who is disabled, was sitting in the coffee shop when I heard a large explosion. I ran out toward the coffee shop and everyone was fleeing, but my husband couldn't. I thought he was dead - his trousers and skin were burned. He will be all right, I thank the Almighty that our grandchildren were not in the mall and that my husband is alive," she said.

The IDF launched air strikes against Palestinian government targets which were being used to plan terrorist attacks in the West Bank in retaliation for the suicide bombing.

The Israeli missile attacks took place in the city of Nablus, carefully avoiding innocent casualties.

Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, promised Saturday that Israel would hunt down Palestinian militants. ``If we have to kill them, we'll kill them,'' Meir said. ``Wherever we can get them, we will get them.''

Last night's terrorist attack followed a weekend of marked escalation by the Palestinian Authority which is supposed be in control of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and it's Tanzim.

Hamas said it had fired two more of its new Qassam-2 missiles and threatened similar strikes against major Israeli population centers. The rocket strike on Kfar Aza north of Gaza caused no casualties but raised the specter of further reprisals by Israel, which raided several Palestinian towns after the first use of the 1-1/2-meter (five-foot)-long Qassam last Sunday.

The Qassam-2 has a longer range -- up to eight km (five miles) -- than weapons previously used by Palestinians and can hit Israeli cities if fired from the West Bank.

Also Saturday, Palestinians fired a homemade Qassam-2 rocket from Gaza into Israel. The rocket landed in an open area and caused no injuries.

Israel suffered additional causalities due to Arab terrorism with St.-Sgt. Lee Nahman Akunis, 20, of Holon, being shot and killed by terrorists on Friday night at a roadblock he was manning with two other soldiers at Surda, north of Ramallah.

Lt.-Col. Eyal Weiss, 34, the commander of the IDF's elite Duvdevan undercover unit, was also killed Friday morning when a wall collapsed on him during a roundup of Palestinian terrorists suspects in the village of Saida northeast of Tulkarm.

Despite the ongoing terrorism in Israel, an estimated 14,000 pro-peace Israelis gathered in central Tel Aviv Saturday night for a rally organized by the leftist Peace Now movement.
The only question that the INA asks these well meaning peace activists is: "Who do you talk to create peace?
Yasser Arafat takes no action whatsoever against terror groups operating in Israel. And the suicide bombers are not interested in talking peace - they are interested only in occupying all of the Middle-East - including Kikar Rabin (Rabin Square where the peace protest took place) in Tel Aviv, which they believe is theirs. All one has to do is to take a close look at the Palestinian flag, Palestinian maps and books - there is no Israel, no borders - only a Palestinian Islamic State."

At least 263 Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks since September 2000.