Security stepped up after suicide bomb kills 20

Security was stepped up across Israel today after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus packed with Jews returning from evening prayers, killing at least 20 people.

Six children were among the dead from last night’s attack in Jerusalem, which was one of the deadliest in three years of fighting. More than 100 people were wounded, including about 40 children.

The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups both said they carried out the bombing, dealing perhaps the most serious blow yet to President Bush’s road map to peace in the Middle East.

Israel immediately froze all contacts with the Palestinian Authority and cancelled the planned handover of two West Bank towns to Palestinian control.

The Israeli army also closed border crossings to seal off the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Security was stepped up at roadblocks around Jerusalem.

The bomber, who police said was disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, blew himself up on the tandem bus, which has two passenger sections, shortly after 9pm local time.

Many Jewish worshippers had boarded the bus at the Western Wall, the Jewish holy site. It was heading for an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, and families with children were packed in the seats and aisles.

One rescue worker, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, said he was among the first people on the scene and while checking for survivors, he found a baby just a few months old, crying and alive.

The baby is in hospital, and after rescue workers searched for the parents throughout the night, they were found alive in another Jerusalem hospital, officials said.

“I had just come home from praying at the Western Wall and was heading home,” said Zvi Weiss, an 18-year-old seminary student from New York City who sat in the front of the bus and escaped unharmed.

“The bomb went off at the back of the bus. Everything went black. I climbed out of the broken window and started running,” he said. “All around me there were people covered in blood, screaming, some with limbs missing.”

Several crying children with tattered clothes and blood-smeared faces were led away from the scene. Body parts were strewn amid broken glass.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack and said it “cannot serve the interests of the Palestinian people”. He ordered Palestinian security forces to investigate.

The Palestinian Authority also decided to cut all dialogue with Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and instead use security forces to take action against the groups in the coming days, one Palestinian official said. It was not clear what sort of action was planned.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Abbas “to take decisive action to arrest the instigators of this attack and prevent such attacks from happening again,” UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York.

Annan also urged Israel to “act with restraint in the face of this provocation, and not contribute to a renewed cycle of violence and revenge.”

Since the intefadeh began in September 2000, more than 2,400 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and more than 800 on the Israeli side.

The road map plan requires Palestinian security forces to dismantle militant groups, something Abbas has said he cannot do for fear of setting off internal fighting. The militants declared a unilateral truce on June 29, but have repeatedly broken their pledge since then.

However, Israeli analysts predicted the sides would continue trying to implement the road map as the alternative would be much worse.

Alex Fishman, a military correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, said Washington would probably increase its pressure on the Palestinian Authority to round the up militants.

“It is absolutely necessary to continue on the political track because the alternative is a return to the never-ending cycle of blood,” Fishman wrote.