Tel Aviv bus bomber freed from Israeli prison, gets hero’s welcome in Jordan
Abdullah Abu Jaber planted a bomb on a bus 20 years ago, injuring 13 civilians; upon his release, he says he did his ‘duty as a Palestinian’
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A Palestinian-Jordanian terrorist jailed in Israel after planting a bomb on a bus that wounded 13 civilians in 2000 was released Tuesday after serving his 20-year sentence.
Abdullah Abu Jaber, 46, was welcomed with flowers and shouts of joy by his family after he entered Jordan across the Sheikh Hussein Bridge.
Jaber, originally from Jordan’s Baqaa refugee camp, hid a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv on December 28, 2000, detonating it remotely and wounding 13 people. He was arrested the following day.
“Twenty years ago, I made a journey not for tourism, but of resistance,” Jaber said, draped in Jordanian and Palestinian keffiyeh headscarves.
“I have done my duty as a Palestinian, because it is the land of Palestine and we must liberate it as quickly as possible,” he said.
He called for rival Palestinian factions Fatah and the Hamas to end their long division and form a common front against Israel. “I hope that the Palestinians will be united again,” he said.
Yunis Abu Sil, a member of the Palestinian National Council, the PLO’s legislative arm, said he was “very happy” and called Jaber a “hero.”
Though Fatah is ostensibly committed to nonviolence, Israel has long accused it of lionizing terrorists as national heroes.
Around half of Jordan’s population of 10 million is of Palestinian origin, including some 2.2 million refugees registered with the United Nations.
The Times of Israel Community.