Human bomb attack in southern Israel

NY Times:

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a shopping center in this southern desert town on Monday morning, killing at least one Israeli, a woman, and wounding 11 others, the ambulance service said.

A second suicide bomber failed to detonate his explosive belt and was shot dead by a police officer at the scene, a police spokesman said.

It was the first suicide attack in Israel in just over a year. In January, 2007, three Israelis were killed in a suicide explosion in the southern city of Eilat.

In the hours after Monday’s attack, police officers lined the streets of Dimona and closed off the area of the bombing to the public.

Following the attack, the police services went on high alert in various areas of the country, and near Dimona police officers were stationed at main junctions on roads leading to the city.

It was not immediately clear where the bombers had come from or how they reached Dimona, a remote working-class town in the Negev desert best known for its proximity to Israel’s nuclear reactor.

Monday’s blast took place several miles from the site of the heavily guarded reactor.

Several Palestinian groups claimed responsibility for the attack, among them a group loosely affiliated with the mainstream Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas. It was not immediately clear how credible those early claims were.

In Israel, initial speculation centered on the possibility that the bombers had entered Israeli territory from the Egyptian Sinai desert. The Israeli authorities have warned in recent days that Palestinian militants took advantage of the breach of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt after Hamas blasted sections of a wall between the two on Jan. 23 to cross from Gaza into Egypt and from Egypt into Gaza.

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I think that speculation is most valid. The sickness that infest the Palestinian brain when it comes to Israel will be looking for any opportunity to murder Israelis. By escaping their siege in Gaza into Egypt it was just a matter of time before they found their way to an unguarded piece of the border so they could go explode around Israelis. It is this type of activities that demonstrates that Palestinians have nothing to offer Israel in any "peace" agreement, because there are too many of them with the death cult mentality.

CNN has more on the attacks.

The quick action of an Israeli police officer may have prevented a second suicide bombing after a first attack Monday killed one person and wounded 11 others, according to police.

Minutes after a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a shopping mall in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, an Israeli police officer shot and killed a second potential bomber whom the initial blast had knocked down.

"When I arrived, someone told me that a second bomber was still alive," police officer Kobi Mor said on Israeli radio. "I saw him lying on the ground moving his hand toward his exposed explosives belt.

"I shot toward him and saw that again he tried to move his hand. I knelt down and shot four more bullets toward his head." Watch the scene at the shopping mall bombing »

Israeli authorities plan to conduct a controlled explosion to neutralize the explosives belt the man wore.

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"It's a natural response to all Israeli crimes, which are targeting women and children," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoom from Gaza City. "Even according to international law, we have the right to defend ourselves."

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The Hamas statement is a disgusting attempt to play the victim and a gross distortion of international law. The deliberate targeting of non combatants while camouflaging the attackers as civilians is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. The arrogance of Hamas knows no bounds of decency.

For a death cult like Hamas to even mention international law is ridiculous. It is a mocking attempt to justify the unjustifiable, and parrot the Israeli response when it attacks those who are launching rockets at non combatants. It is this attitude that makes it clear that the Palestinians have nothing of value to offer Israel in any "peace" deal.