An Israeli was killed and 12 person, seven of them foreign tourists, were injured today when a bomb went off at a gasoline service station about nine miles outside of Jerusalem. Two of the injured were reported in critical condition at Hadassah Hospital.
The bomb was placed in a garbage can between two fuel pumps and it went off as vehicles were lined up at the pump waiting for service. The service station operator said the station, just off the main Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway and near Kibbutz Neve lion and the Arab village of Abu Gosh, was filled with Israeli and foreign tourists on their way to Jerusalem. Some 200 American and Spanish tourists, from several tour buses, were milling around the station at the time of the explosion.
Miraculously, the large underground gasoline tanks did not explode. Those injured had shrapnel wounds or burns from the blast and the fire it caused. The foreign tourists who were injured, none of them seriously, were from Australia Germany and Spain, police said.
Earlier today, no one was hurt when an explosive device went off at the soldier’s hitch-hike station on the Tel Aviv Jerusalem highway at the entrance to Jerusalem. Police later began searching all service stations along the highway.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
