Day after Jerusalem blast, police mum amid hunt for bomber

Israeli authorities on Tuesday were continuing to investigate a Jerusalem bus bombing that wounded 21 people and raised fears of a sharp escalation in violence, while police planned tightened security for the upcoming Passover holiday.

The number 12 bus exploded on Moshe Baram Street in the Talpiot neighborhood of the capital at approximately 5:45 p.m. Monday, also setting another bus and a passing car on fire, in what security officials called a terror attack.

In total 21 people were wounded, police said, with Israeli media reporting a 15-year-old girl in serious condition.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed officers were seeking to question the wounded and did not rule out the possibility of potential suspects among them.

“The investigation is looking to see how the explosive device was placed on the bus,” he said.

Police imposed a gag order on further details of the investigation and any suspects.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night promised to “find whoever prepared this explosive device.”

“We’ll settle the score with these terrorists,” he said.

A number of victims remained hospitalized Monday afternoon, including a 15-year-old girl in serious condition, according to Hebrew media reports.

Michael Cheshin said he was on his way to a Krav Maga lesson when the number 12 bus exploded.

“I only saw the noise and the fire,” he said with a heavy Russian accent in his hospital bed.

Cheshin’s right hand was completely covered in bandages, the result of his cellular phone battery exploding in the attack. He also had pieces of metal in his leg that were removed in surgery and ruptured eardrums.

An injured person in critical condition has yet to be identified by officials, leading to speculation he may have been the bomber.

“He has combined injuries: severe burns, unfortunately, from the fire and severe injuries to his limbs from the explosion. [The injuries] are to both his upper and lower extremities,” Ofer Merrin, the head of Shaare Zedek’s Trauma Center, said of the unnamed person.

“There’s no ID yet. They are working on that a lot, and there are a number of thoughts about his identity. But we’re just dealing with his medical condition,” he added.

Other people injured also had some combination of burns and explosion-related injuries, Merrin said.

No terror group has claimed responsibility for the bombing and the small size of the bomb has led to some speculation that the explosion may have been carried out by an attacker working on his own.

The Palestinian Islamist terrorist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, welcomed the attack, as did other Palestinian terror groups.

The terror attack broke weeks of relative calm in the city after a six-month wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and vehicular attacks seemed to be subsiding, and raised fears of a return to a type of violence not seen in Jerusalem for years.

Bus bombings were common during the Second Intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s, but Monday’s attack was the first bomb targeting a bus in Jerusalem since 2011, when a British tourist was killed by a bomb planted next to a bus stop.

In Tel Aviv, a bomb exploded on an empty bus in 2013 in what Israeli authorities called a “terrorist” attack.

Avi Dichter, a lawmaker and former Shin Bet chief, stressed the bomb did far less damage than those during the intifada. The frame of the bus was still largely intact, unlike with larger bombs.

“The explosive charge was much lower than those we experienced during the suicide bombings of the second intifada,” Dichter told Israel Radio.

The blast comes ahead of the Passover holiday, which starts on Friday evening.

The Israeli government regularly closes off access to Israel for Palestinians during major Jewish religious festivals, and is expected to do so again.

Rosenfeld said the threat level would be raised during the week-long holiday.

“Security assessments were made immediately yesterday evening following the attack,” he told AFP.

“Extra police units and border police are patrolling public areas,” including bus stations and the light rail tram system in the city, he said, without specifying how many reinforcements.

Brachie Sprung, spokeswoman for Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, said the city council was not planning any changes to its schedule during Passover.

“We are telling people to go back to normal — we don’t cancel events,” she told AFP. “We talk about being super cautious but going back to normal as quickly as possible.”

Itamar Yaar, former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council, said he did not expect any major security clampdown in the city.

“I really don’t think there will be any change in the Israeli behavior,” Yaar told AFP. “Perhaps in the first few days you will see more checks at checkpoints. But the most effective activities in this case are collecting intelligence and trying to reach the people that organized it.”