<p>July 16, 2002- Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli passenger bus in Samaria, after first detonating a roadside charge to disable the bus. Eight people were killed and 17 wounded, including a nine month-old baby, her grandmother and her father. The attack occurred at roughly 15:00, as the bus climbed a winding road leading to the hilltop settlement of Emmanuel. Witnesses said that a tremendous explosion went off some 200 meters in front of the bus. As passengers attempted to leave the bus, three or four armed men opened fire with automatic weapons from the roadside. An Emmanuel resident said that among the dead were three members of the same family – a woman, her son-in-law, and a baby girl. Eight to ten of the wounded, including a baby, a pregnant woman, and several children, were admitted in serious condition to local hospitals. Most of the casualties were were apparently hit by gunfire, rather than by shrapnel from the explosion. The attackers reportedly fled on foot toward the Palestinian autonomous city of Nablus. Witnesses said that the gunmen were disguised as Israeli soldiers. Israeli security forces closed the road leading to the scene of the attack and launched a manhunt for the gunmen. Both the military wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and the military wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack. The Qatar-based Al Jazeera television station reported that the attack was carried out by the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in cooperation with Hamas. The ambush was similar to an attack last December in the same area, in which 10 people were killed. Since then, buses on the Immanuel route have been required to be armored against roadside bombs. </p>
<p>June 18, 2002- A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus packed with schoolchildren and office workers near the busy Patt Intersection in southern Jerusalem, killing 19 people and wounding 52. </p>
<p>May 7, 2002- A suicide bomber detonated a powerful bomb in a crowded billiards hall in Israel, killing fifteen and wounding more than 50. The attack took place at the “Sheffield Club” pool hall, on the third floor of a building in Rishon LeTzion, South of Tel-Aviv. The building, located in a suburban industrial zone filled with shops, was about a block distant from one of the country’s largest shopping malls. Police said the attack was carried out by a lone terrorist who carried a suitcase full of explosives, spiked with shrapnel and nails to cause maximum injury. Witnesses said the bomber took a few steps into the crowded room shortly before 23:00 and detonated. “There was no time to flee; no time to do anything,” a survivor told Israel Radio. The explosion blew out the entire front of the pool hall and caused part of the ceiling to collapse. “It looks like a battlefield,” said a television reporter, adding that the ground outside was littered with body parts of people who had been flung out of the building. According to hospital officials, some 60 people had been evacuated to hospital, 16 of them in very serious condition. “Most of those injured were hurt as a result of the explosion, not from the collapse of the building,” said Avi Zohar, general director of Magen David Adom (Israel’s equivalent to the Red Cross). Rescue workers said some of the dead were trapped under the collapsed roof. Firemen used two cranes to clear away the debris to get to those buried underneath. </p>
<p>March 31, 2002- A Palestinian bomber targeted a restaurant in Haifa Sunday morning, killing fifteen people and injuring more than 35. The bomber walked into the “Matza” Middle Eastern food restaurant in Haifa’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood, near the city’s largest shopping mall at roughly 14:45. He detonated a “significant quantity” of explosives, packed with nails and shrapnel among the diners.</p>
<p>March 27, 2002- Twenty-nine Israelis were killed and around 150 were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the dining room of the Park Hotel in Netanya. The bomber was identified as a member of the Hamas, Iz a Din al-Kassam Brigades, from the West Bank city of Tulkarem, which is just 10 kilometers (six miles) East of Netanya. He was on the list of wanted terrorists Israel had requested to be arrested. </p>
<p>March 9, 2002- A Palestinian suicide bomber walked into Jerusalem’s Moment cafe in the city’s Rehavia neighborhood last night at 10:30 and blew himself up, killing at least 11 people and wounding over 50, 10 seriously. The bomber walked into the cafe, located at the corner of Aza and Ben-Maimon streets about 100 meters from the Prime Minister’s residence, and detonated a powerful explosive charge that completely gutted the restaurant. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was not home at the time of the explosion. The cafe was crowded with dozens of people at the time of the attack. </p>
<p>December 2, 2001- Fifteen Israelis were killed and more than 60 wounded in a suicide bombing of a bus in Haifa. The explosion took place in Haifa’s Halissa neighborhood, a quite district renowned for the peaceful coexistence between its Arabs and Jewish residents. The blast occurred as the bus crossed HaGibborim bridge, completely destroying the bus, which continued downhill out of control, eventually crashing into several large vans. Another bus immediately behind the targeted vehicle was badly damaged as well. The driver of the No. 16 bus said that the suicide bomber paid for his ticket with a five shekel coin and moved to the back of the bus. When the driver called the man back to receive his change, the bomber detonated the bomb strapped to his waist. The driver was moderately injured. One Philappina was killed in the blast, and four other Philippino citizens injured. Two of them, Mario Libao and Lily Bassi, were serious condition at a Haifa hospital. Two others, siblings Raul and Maricar Vibas, were recovering. </p>
<p>December 1, 2001- Eleven Israeli young people were killed and more than a hundred injured when two suicide bombers detonated their explosives at different places along Jerusalem’s pedestrian mall at about 11:30 Saturday night. The mall was crowded with mostly young people, who had come out after sundown at the end of the Jewish Sabbath to sit at the outdoor cafe’s and socialize. Ten people – all between the ages of 14 and 20 – were killed in the blasts, not counting the bombers, and at least 19 critically injured. Twenty-eight others sustained moderate injuries and the rest were lightly injured. Some twenty minutes later, as rescue and emergency forces worked to evacuate the wounded, a car bomb exploded about 40 meters away, on nearby on Rav Kook Street. No one was injured in the car bomb, which was apparently aimed at the rescuers and the crowds on the periphery of the blast scene.</p>
<p>August 9, 2001- A suicide bombing at a pizza restaurant in the center of Jerusalem killed 15 people–mostly young families and tourists–and wounded more than 90. Six children were among the dead. At roughly 14:00, a blast devastated a crowded Sbarro Pizzeria at the corner of King George and Jaffa streets. More than 90 people were wounded–two critically and ten seriously. The pizzeria, located at one of the busiest street corners in downtown Jerusalem, is a favorite for families and school children on summer vacation, and a number of infants are amongst the dead and wounded. Five of the dead were members of the same family, including the parents and three children, aged 14, 4 and 2. Two other daughters, 8 and 7, were wounded, one severely. Unexploded fragments of the bomb were found by police sappers and detonated in a controlled explosion. Security forces are currently searching for additional devices. Both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Israeli security sources later said that the bombing was the work of Hamas. </p>
<p>June 1, 2001- A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt amid a crowd of youngsters outside a beachfront nightclub on Friday night, killing at least 20 and injuring more than 120. The blast occurred shortly after 11:00 pm, when Tel-Aviv’s Promenade was full of young people, who gather on weekends to dance, drink and socialize. Hundreds of young Israelis, including many Israeli Arabs, flock to the area’s beachfront nightclubs and discotheques every Friday night. The Dolphinarium, where the blast occurred, is also popular with the children of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union.</p>