BICOM

Hamas claimed responsibility for Monday’s Jerusalem bus bombing following the death of the attacker yesterday evening.

After an unidentified seriously-wounded man died in Jerusalem’s Shaarei Zedek hospital, Hamas released a photo of the man who carried out the attack who they named as 19-year-old Abdel Hamid Abu Sror from el-Aida in the Bethlehem area.

Although Hamas did not explicitly claim the attack, the release of the bomber’s name and photo on a poster with Hamas logos and slogans has been interpreted by Israeli analysts as a de-facto claim of responsibility. Traditionally, terror groups like Hamas would claim terror attacks immediately. The late and equivocal claim of responsibility may mean that the bomber was associated with Hamas but not directly sent by the organisation. The posters praising the bomber also included Hamas logos but did not feature logos or branding from Izzadeen al-Qassam, the Hamas ‘military’ wing which usually carries out terror attacks.

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 came after a lull in the several-month-long wave of Palestinian stabbing attacks. The relatively-low casualty count in the bombing was attributed to the bomb itself, which was reported to be crude, small and rudimentary.

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.