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22-02-2025
JERUSALEM/ TEL AVIV: Three buses have exploded in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, in what Israeli police say is a suspected terror attack.
Devices in two other buses failed to explode, they said, adding that “large police forces are at the scenes, searching for suspects”.
Transport Minister Miri Regev paused all buses, trains and light rail trains in the country so that checks for explosive devices could be carried out, Israeli media reports said.
Footage on social media shows at least one bus on fire in a parking lot, with a large plume of smoke rising above.
There have been no reports of casualties at this stage, police said.
Police spokesperson Aryeh Doron said the “event is ongoing”, with officers still trying to locate more bombs in Tel Aviv.
“Our forces are still scouring the area,” Doron told Channel 12, adding that the public must be on alert for “every suspected bag or object”.
“We may be lucky if indeed the terrorists set these timers to the wrong hour. But it’s too early to determine,” he said.
According to local media, one of the unexploded devices, weighing 5kg, carried a message saying “Revenge from Tulkarem” referring to a recent Israeli military counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank.
In response to the incidents in Bat Yam, Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to “increase the intensity” of activity in refugee camps in the West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was being updated on the situation, his office said in a statement.
The Kan public broadcaster reports that Transport Minister Miri Regev has cut short her trip to Morocco and will return to Israel.
Meanwhile, from her house in east London, British-Israeli Sharone Lifschitz never gave up hope that her 84-year-old father Oded would return from the horror of Hamas captivity, after more than 500 days.
He was a man of peace, a campaigner for, and a friend of, Palestinians.
He was dragged from his home by Palestinian gunmen on 7 October and killed in captivity after being taken to Gaza alive.
The return of his body on Thursday was devastating news for Lifschitz and her family, particularly her mother Yocheved who was also a hostage but returned alive and now will not be able to reunite with her husband of 63 years.
After identifying Oded’s body, the head of Israel’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine said he had been killed in captivity more than a year ago. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said he “was murdered in captivity by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.”
A filmmaker and academic, at her home when the ceasefire was announced last month. She shed tears of joy and hope as at last she saw an opportunity where she would discover what had happened to her father. After more than a year of him being held hostage, she didn’t know if he was alive or dead.
Sharone Lifschitz admitted then that at his age the hopes for his survival were slim, but she also believed “miracles can happen”.
Lifschitz has been an eloquent and dignified voice for the release of her father and the other hostages, and shed light on the trauma the hostage families have faced since their ordeal began.
“One way or another, we will know. We will know if he’s still with us, if we can look after him. We will know who we are grieving for… My father didn’t deserve this. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
