Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 30 January 2004 — A Palestinian blew up an Israeli bus in Jerusalem yesterday, killing 10 people as Israel and Hezbollah carried out a prisoner exchange.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an off-shoot of Fatah, said a letter left behind by the bomber said he belonged to the group and was avenging an Israeli raid in Gaza a day earlier that killed eight Palestinians, including three civilians.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei condemned the attack as part of a cycle of violence, calling for a cease-fire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and implementation of the peace road map.

Hamas official Said Siam said: “This attack is a legitimate response of our people to Israeli massacres, including the latest yesterday at Al-Zeitun.”

Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed Al-Hindi said: “Israel bears responsibility for everything that is happening. Yesterday a massacre took place in Al-Zeitun and no one condemned it but today we will hear condemnations from all sides internationally and calls to strike at the resistance.

Predictably, the White House urged the Palestinians to ramp up their fight against terrorism. “We strongly condemn this terrorist attack. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, adding that US President George W. Bush’s “thoughts and prayers” were with the victims.

McClellan stressed that such strikes “only undermine the aspiration and hopes of the Palestinian people” by endangering the creation of an independent Palestinian state as called for under the road.

“We continue to call for a Palestinian prime minister and Cabinet that is dedicated to fighting terrorism and dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.”

The explosion on Bus 19 peeled back part of its roof, shattered windows and scattered body parts up to 15 meters (50 ft) away on Gaza Street near Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s official residence.

Sharon was at his ranch in southern Israel at the time. Police said the bomb was packed with nuts and bolts to maximize casualties. Dozens of wounded were rushed to hospital.

“It was like a pastoral scene — the sun was shining and it was serene outside — but the bus was a nightmare. Bodies were sitting in their chairs, burned, motionless,” said witness Drora Resnick.

“There were burned children sitting together. People started rushing off the bus, but they were still there, not moving.”

Hours after the blast, Israel released some 400 Palestinian prisoners into the West Bank and Gaza and returned over its border with Lebanon the bodies of 59 Lebanese and Arab fighters killed during a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

Some of the prisoners knelt in prayer as they alighted from Israeli tour buses and others waved farewell to jailers who watched them go.

“Most of those freed were due to be freed in a few months’ time anyway,” said released prisoner Annam Sayel, 20, who was sentenced in August 2002 to 28 months in jail for throwing petrol bombs and stones at soldiers.

The key to the deal was the identification at an air base in Cologne, Germany of the bodies of three Israeli soldiers abducted at the Lebanese border in 2000 and handed over by Hezbollah with abducted Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum.

In Beirut, Tannenbaum, whose hair appeared to have grayed during more than three years of captivity, said he came to Lebanon on business and to seek information on Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, lost on a mission in 1986.

Tannenbaum said he did not know exactly where he had been held, but that Hezbollah had treated him well.

Twenty-nine prisoners, most of them Lebanese and including a German convert to Islam jailed in 1997 as a Hezbollah agent, were also flown from Israel to Cologne. The plane carrying them landed in Beirut in the evening to hero’s welcome.

— Additional input from agencies