BICOM

At least 21 people were injured yesterday in a bomb attack on a Jerusalem bus.

One victim remains in critical condition after the attack, which hit the Number 12 bus in the Talpiot neighbourhood of South Jerusalem early yesterday evening.

While the cause of the explosion on the bus was initially unclear, the police and IDF were able to confirm that a bomb was responsible. Some of the injured were wounded by nails, which are added to bombs to make them more lethal. The attack is not believed to have been a suicide bomb, though investigations are still ongoing.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised: “We will find out who placed the bomb, we will reach those who dispatched them and we will also get to those who stand behind them, and settle the account with these terrorists”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also condemned the attack in an address to the J Street peace organisation. He said; “These outrages are intended solely to instill fear, but I think everyone here knows, history has proven, and we know it in our hearts and in our guts: they will never succeed in intimidating the Israeli people.”

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also tweeted a brief message last night: “Condemn the bus bombing today in #Jerusalem. Sincere sympathies to those injured.”

No terror group has claimed responsibility for the bomb but Hamas welcomed it, saying “Hamas blesses the Jerusalem operation, and considers it a natural reaction to Israeli crimes, especially field executions and the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque”. The attack was also praised by Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade.

Buses were a major terror target of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with waves of suicide bombings killing many in the terror wave of the 1990s and the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. There were eight bus bombings in Jerusalem between 2001 – 2004 which killed 85 Israelis. However, such attacks have become much more rare; the most recent bus bombing in Israel was in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv in December 2013.

The bomb comes after the number of stabbing attacks against Israelis has dramatically dropped. All of Israel is on high security alert before the Passover holiday that begins on the weekend.