Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 30, 2004
Sharon to meet security officials on Jerusalem bus bombing
Israeli Prime Minister ArielSharon will meet Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and the heads of the defense establishment Thursday night to discuss the response to the suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and the heads of the defense establishment Jan. 29 night to discuss the response to the suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem.
On Thursday morning, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives on a bus in central Jerusalem, killing at least 10 people and wounding 50 others. As of 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), 31 people wounded in the attack were still hospitalized, 12 of them in serious condition.
A leaflet signed by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing ofthe Fatah movement, had claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the bomber, Muneer Ja'ara, was a police officer from Bethlehem.
However, the Fatah movement chaired by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat later denied that its armed group was involved in the suicide bombing attack.
"Fatah movement has no relation at all with the attack carried out earlier on Thursday in which many were killed and wounded," the Palestinian official news agency WAFA quoted a Fatah official as saying.