A mother and her child were killed when a bomb exploded on top of a bus in Petach Tikva today. Thirteen other persons in the bus waiting line were injured, five of them seriously. None of the victims was immediately identified. The woman and child died in the hospital. The other injured were under treatment at the Beilenson and Hasharon Hospitals in Petach Tikva. Police cordoned off the are and arrested 30 suspects for questioning. All one expected to be released shortly.
The Palestine Liberation Organization claimed credit for the outrage and for a bomb attack earlier today on Israeli government offices in Hebron which caused no casualties. A Radio Damascus broadcast said terrorists” operating from within occupied territory” were responsible for the Petach Tikva bombing. According to police, the bomb was concealed in a plastic bag on the roof of the bus, above eye level and therefore undetected.
(In Washington, State Department spokesman Kenneth Brown condemned “these terrorist attacks” and their perpetrators at Petach Tikva and Hebron. “We see by media reports that the PLO has taken responsibility for the bombings,” he said in a rare U.S. condemnation of the PLO.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
