Bus bombing kicks off day of carnage

A suicide bombing on a bus began a day of bloodshed that left 18 people dead and dozens injured in shootings, bombings and ambushes from northern Israel to Jerusalem and the Mediterranean coast.

The violence punctuated a day filled with demolitions by Israeli troops of nine homes belonging to the families of militants implicated in attacks, as well as the army’s siege of the West Bank city of Nablus, considered by Israel to be the hub of Palestinian suicide bombings.

The first attack occurred in the hills of the Galilee during yesterday’s morning rush hour, when a Palestinian suicide bomber shredded a bus packed with soldiers and civilians. Nine passengers and the bomber were killed.

Hours later, a shooting attack in Jerusalem’s Old City left three people dead. In the northern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian armed with a rifle and grenades was shot dead as he emerged from the Mediterranean in a wetsuit and diving equipment near the Jewish settlements of Dugit and Alei Sinai, the army said.

The bloodshed continued early today as Palestinians opened fire on a car travelling on the main road in the West Bank, between Ramallah and Nablus, killing an Israeli couple and wounding two of their children, the military said.

Israeli soldiers also shot dead two Palestinians, including a fugitive local leader of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, as they emerged from a house in the village of Borqa north of Nablus, relatives said. The men were killed, and four other people arrested, after troops surrounded the house and ordered them out, the relatives said.

Israel’s military clampdown on the West Bank has kept many Palestinians confined to their homes for most of the past six weeks, but the day’s heavy toll was stark evidence that the crackdown had not prevented militants from staging attacks inside Israel.

Palestinian attacks have killed 25 people since an Israeli airstrike on July 22 killed leading Hamas militant Salah Shehadeh and 14 Palestinians, many of them children, in Gaza.

Hamas leaders vowed to avenge the airstrike. ‘‘We advise (Israelis) to prepare more bodybags and wait for the coming operations,’’ a masked Hamas militant said during a rally celebrating the bus bombing late Sunday in Gaza City.

Hamas said the bombing was the second retaliatory strike for Shehadeh’s killing, following a bombing on Wednesday at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University that killed seven, including five Americans.

‘‘People lucky enough not to face the ugly face of terror can have a much more relaxed opinion about it,’’ said Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres. ‘‘If you live through a day like today, in this country, you can understand our determination.’’

US president George Bush said he was ‘‘distressed’’ to learn of the latest bombing. ‘‘There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process,’’ Bush said.

The bus bombing, at Meron Junction in the Galilee region of northern Israel, turned the green bus into a fireball, charring the insides and ripping the metal panels as if they were ribbons.

The dead included three Israeli soldiers, two Filipino women and one Arab-Israeli woman, authorities said. Thirty-seven people were injured, two critically, rescue workers said.

Chaim Itzkovitch was just leaving his house for work yesterday when he heard the blast and saw flames in the air. He rode his bicycle to the scene.

Initially, he said, ‘‘I didn’t hear anyone saying, ‘Help me.’ I went into the bus through the door and I could see men and women lying on the floor.’’

A moment later, cries for help broke out among the dozens of wounded.

‘‘There was a lot of screaming, horrible screaming inside the bus,’’ said Avraham Freed, who owns a restaurant near the blast site. ‘‘I saw one person on the ground next to the bus bodies, parts of bodies, people jumping through the windows.’’

The bus driver, Shmuel Ronen, escaped with light wounds just as he did six years ago when the bus he was driving in Jerusalem was bombed.

Ron Ratner, a spokesman for the Egged bus company, said security was tight in the coastal town of Haifa, where the trip originated. But the bomber probably boarded at a stop in one of the Arab villages on the way to the town of Tsfat.

About 4,000 people celebrated the bus bombing in Gaza City last night, passing out sweets and praying near Shehadeh’s destroyed house, where militants shouting over loudspeakers vowed to ‘‘avenge every drop of his blood’’.

Israel TV said the bomber had come from the northern West Bank town of Jenin, and had managed to enter Israel because troops had been diverted from the area to Nablus for the army’s crackdown on that city.

The Israeli government said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was 73 yesterday, bore ultimate responsibility for not reining in militants during the 22 months of Middle East fighting.

‘‘This Palestinian terror must be uprooted and Israel will not relent,’’ said David Baker, an official in prime minister Ariel Sharon’s office.

The Palestinian leadership condemned the bombing, but also accused Sharon of ‘‘war crimes’’ for the Israeli army’s mass detentions, home demolitions and curfews imposed on Palestinians.

Three hours after the bus bombing, a Palestinian attacker opened fire just outside the stone walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, sparking a gun battle with police that left three dead.

The Palestinian gunman fired on a truck belonging to Israel’s main phone company, Bezeq. A security guard was killed and the driver was injured, police said.

The gunman was killed by nearby police, and an Arab bystander was killed in the crossfire, Israeli officials said. More than a dozen people were hurt, most of them Palestinians.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, whose members are loyal to Arafat, claimed responsibility.

In other violence yesterday, four Israeli soldiers were wounded, three of them seriously, when a roadside bomb damaged their vehicle near an Israeli military base outside the West Bank city of Ramallah.

In the northern West Bank, three Israelis were wounded in a shooting ambush, according to Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, a spokesmen for the Jewish settlers. Two of the wounded were soldiers and one was a civilian, he added.