Israel has vowed revenge against the perpetrators of Tuesday’s bomb attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, in which at least 10 people were killed and some 200 injured.
Foreign Minister David Levy, in a brief and somber statement to the Knesset, said there would be “painful punishment” meted out to those who plotted the attack and those who carried it out.
In Beirut, the Islamic Jihad, a Moslem fundamentalist group, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. The group seemed to point a finger at an Argentine citizen whom it called “Abu Yasser,” for a deed it called heroic, carried out to avenge Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas Mussawi last month.
Israeli security forces were taking the Islamic Jihad announcement at face value.
But it was not clear whether the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization had in fact planted the bomb or was only taking credit for it.
In Buenos Aires, Argentine Interior Minister Jose Luis Manzano issued a statement Wednesday calling the attack “an international terrorist blow with the help of some local neo-Nazi elements.”
In Washington, President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker conveyed their sympathy and outrage in both a public statement and in private conversations with Israeli leaders.
“The United States is shocked and outraged by the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires yesterday which also claimed some Argentinian lives,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said Wednesday.
She said the United States had offered its assistance to the Israeli ambassador in Buenos Aires, although she did not elaborate.
EFFORTS TO REACH SURVIVORS
Israeli experts said that although it was too early to pinpoint responsibility, the bombing in Buenos Aires seems to indicate the work of Islamic fundamentalist groups.
The explosion in Buenos Aires was set off by a car bomb. Just before the blast, a car in front of the embassy seemed to catch fire and explode, an eyewitness told Argentine police.
On Tuesday, Argentine President Carlos Menem said he believed the attack could have been perpetrated by Argentine neo-Nazis or a far right paramilitary group.
But at a news conference in Buenos Aires later that day, Menem said, “All indications lead us to believe it was a terrorist attack that has come from people outside the country, a group of foreigners who are working in Buenos Aires.”
Menem has asked the Israeli Mossad and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for help in finding the perpetrators.
Levy told the Knesset that Israel had requested, and Argentina agreed, that no heavy earthmoving equipment be used in the rescue work until a team of Israeli rescue experts had reached the scene.
In the interim, the Argentine authorities would continue moving earth and rubble by hand in their efforts to reach possible survivors without triggering new collapses of debris.
Searchers dug through mounds of rubble of the five-story building, passing oxygen to trapped individuals.
JEWISH COMMUNITY IN SHOCK
Levy, addressing the Knesset, announced the death of Zahava Zahavi, the wife of the embassy’s first secretary, who herself worked as a secretary at the embassy; and Eliora Carmon, wife of Consul Danny Carmon.
Two other Israelis were reported missing: attache David Ben-Rafael and embassy security officer Eli Ben-Ze’ev.
In addition, an Argentine employee of the embassy was known to have died and three others were missing, Levy said.
A vice president of the World Jewish Congress, Kalman Sultnik, flew to Buenos Aires to attend the burial of the victims in the Jewish cemetery.
The Jewish community of Argentina was in a state of shock Wednesday following the attack.
A state of heightened alert continued throughout Argentina as Jewish sites were given police protection. All Jewish schools in the Argentine capital remained closed Wednesday.
Jewish leaders met with the Argentine National Congress, in a special session convened because of the attack.
“The emotion within the Jewish community is of an unprecedented intensity,” Benno Milnitzky, president of the Latin American Jewish Congress, said in a statement.
“There is a true wave of shock,” he said.
A march to repudiate the terrorist bombing was called for Thursday at 5 p.m. local time, said Cynthia Hener, assistant to the editor of Mundo Israelita (Jewish World), a weekly Jewish newspaper published in Buenos Aires.
(Contributing to this report were JTA staff writer Susan Birnbaum in New York and JTA correspondent Howard Rosenberg in Washington.)
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