Israeli Bus Bomb Attacks

17 Aug 2010

Throughout the 1990s, suicide bomb attacks on Israel’s public bus network and at bus stations were a common phenomenon.  Following the end of the First Intifada [Intifada means ‘shaking off’ / uprising in Arabic] in 1993, until the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000, there were 10 suicide attacks against buses. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada, these attacks increased dramatically, and remained high until the end of the uprising in 2005 which coincided with significant progress in the construction of the Israeli West Bank Separation Barrier; by 2005 roughly half of the planned length of the barrier had been completed.   In the five years since then, Palestinian militant attacks in general within Israel, not only those targeting buses, have decreased significantly.  All the main Palestinian militant groups have carried out bus attacks, with Hamas having been responsible for the majority.

Bus travel is a popular means of transport within Israel, both locally and intercity.  The largest and oldest bus company, Egged, which suffered the majority of attacks, operates over 3,500 buses nationally and carries one million passengers on a daily basis.   As well as being cheap and convenient, buses are also an easy target for suicide and non-suicide bomb attacks (such as a bomb left in a piece of luggage on a bus) and create a high number of victims due to their load especially during rush hours. Unlike at train or bus stations, where security measures such as CCTV and security gates and checks can be implemented, passengers embarking at bus stops are subject to no such scrutiny.  At the height of the Second Intifada, between 2001 and 2004, there were more than 20 attacks against buses, bus stops or bus stations.  More than 200 civilians were killed in such attacks and many more injured, which equates to more than 25% of all Israeli civilian deaths during the Second Intifada.  But in a typically Israeli stoic manner when it comes to terrorism, passenger numbers reduced by only 10% during this period…MORE ONLINE

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