BICOM

It was announced yesterday that several members of Hamas have been arrested on suspicion of their involvement in Monday’s bus bombing in Jerusalem.

The attack on the Number 12 bus in the Talpiot neighbourhood of Jerusalem wounded 21 people, and was the first suicide bomb on a Jerusalem bus for 12 years. It was confirmed that the only fatality caused by the bomb was that of the bomber himself, named as 19-year-old Abdel Hamid Abu Sror from el-Aida in the Bethlehem area. Hamas released a photo of the bomber in a de facto claim of responsibility for the attack.

Yesterday, Jerusalem Police released a statement saying that arrests of possible accomplices had been made. It said: “Through intensive intelligence and field activity, the Shin Bet, the Israel Police, and the IDF arrested a number of… Hamas suspects from the Bethlehem area – who are suspected of being involved in planning the attack and executing it. Their questioning is in progress, and their identities are classified.”

Hamas was responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings in the 1990s and during the Second Intifada from 2000-2004. More recently though, Hamas has focused on ruling and fortifying Gaza and on attacking Israel via its rocket fleet and tunnel network.

Monday’s attack came after a lull in the several-month-long wave of Palestinian stabbing attacks. In the wake of the bombing and in advance of the Passover holiday, Israeli authorities implemented a closure of the West Bank at midnight last night, which is likely to be in force until Saturday night. Channel Ten said that Israel has “warnings, although not concrete” of plans to commit further imminent attacks. The week-long Passover holiday is often seen as a point of potential tension, with increased numbers of visitors in Jerusalem and especially at the Temple Mount.