British suicide bomber's farewell tirade

Hamas belatedly claimed responsibility today for a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv bar a year ago and released a farewell video of two British Muslims it had recruited for the attack.

The video was unusual. One of the Britons, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, from Derby, delivered a wide-ranging tirade in English against Israel and the Muslim world. Normally, militants in such videos read a few brief words from the Koran.

Three Israelis were killed and 50 wounded in the April 30 attack on Mike’s Place, a beachfront pub popular with foreigners in Israel.

Hamas did not claim responsibility until today, apparently to protect those who recruited the bombers, even though Israeli security officials said from the start they believed the Islamic militant group was involved.

The video, along with Hamas threats of more attacks, was released a day after Israeli troops killed 14 Palestinians in a raid of a Gaza Strip refugee camp.

The video was seen as a warning by Hamas that it can slip bombers from Gaza into Israel despite stringent security measures, including a barbed-wire fence ringing the strip.

In more than three years of fighting, Palestinian militants have been unable to sneak out of Gaza to carry out bombings, while Hamas cells from the West Bank have sent dozens of assailants during the same period.

In trying to get around Israeli security, Hamas in Gaza last year recruited Sharif and Asif Hanif, 21, from the London suburb of Hounslow. The two used their British passports to sail through the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel.

On April 30, Hanif blew himself up at Mike’s Place, killing a waitress and two musicians. Sharif’s explosives apparently malfunctioned, and he fled. His body washed up on a nearby beach two weeks later, and an Israeli pathologist said he had drowned.

In the farewell video, Sharif and Hanif sat in front of a large green Islamic wall hanging in a Gaza apartment, both wearing military fatigues and carrying assault rifles.

Hanif delivered a traditional speech of Koranic verses, while Sharif talked about Palestinian suffering for which he blamed Israel and a complacent Muslim world. “What are we doing as Muslims to help them (the Palestinians)?” he said.

It became apparent from Sharif’s speech that his Hamas recruiters had taken him around Gaza. He said that at one point, he visited a farm in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia that had been destroyed during an Israeli incursion.

“You spend the whole day in fields and then some dude comes with his truck and runs over it. How would you feel? You feel like standing him up, shooting him ... because you have worked for a whole day like that,” Sharif said.