Hamas Branch in West Bank Claims Responsibility for Jerusalem Bus Bombing
by News Editor
The West Bank branch of Hamas claimed responsibility on 20 April for a suicide attack on a passenger bus on Jerusalem’s Moshe Baram Street three days earlier on 18 April, which had injured 21 people and marked the first large-scale attack on public transport since a 17 April 2006 suicide attack in Tel Aviv. The claim came after Hamas initially released a statement praising the attack – something it does regularly following small-scale attacks – but which came short of taking credit for it.
The modus operandi of the attack and Hamas’ claim mark a potential escalation in the group’s attempts to begin staging more concerted attacks in Israel, amid a rise in the number of small-scale stabbing attacks – primarily carried out by Palestinian perpetrators undirected by Hamas – since June 2015.
Read full story at IHS Jane’s 360.