Israel Vows Revenge For Bus Bombing

A suicide bomber targeted a crowded bus in the northern city of Haifa on Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and injuring dozens, officials said.

The blast ripped off the roof of the No. 37 bus, strewing wreckage and body parts across the street. Witnesses said the explosion occurred just after the bus stopped in the hilltop neighborhood Carmelia at about 2:17 p.m. Officials said because of the hour, the bus would have been packed with students from the nearby University of Haifa.

The driver, Marwan Damouni, told Army Radio the bus exploded as he opened the doors to let passengers off.

"I suddenly heard an explosion," said Damouni, who was being treated at Carmel Hospital. "I tried to move, to see if there were wounded … I couldn't hear anything because of the force of the blast."

The suicide bomber blew himself up at the back of the bus. He was carrying more than a hundred pounds of explosive, strapped to his chest, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

The dead included office workers, and university students. They were riding home from work and school, on an afternoon bus in the northern port city of Haifa.

Investigators believe the bomber came from the Jenin area, in the West Bank – the Israeli army has imposed a curfew, to search for suspects.

The blast toppled some palm trees and left the bus a skeleton of charred and twisted metal. Cars that were parked nearby were also damaged in the blast, and some passers-by were among the injured.

Israel said it will retaliate for the attack, but not to a degree that would upset U.S. war plans against Iraq.

Ovadia Saar, who was driving another bus just behind the one that was attacked, said he saw "the back of the bus fly into the air, and the windows blew out and a great cloud of dust covered the bus."

"I got out and ran toward the bus. It was a horrible sight. There were a few bodies in the street," he said. "Those we saw breathing we evacuated."

Palestinian militant group Hamas called it payback Israeli raids in the last two months.

"This is a clear message for the new government, that Israeli aggression will be balanced by a willed, effective resistance from the Palestinian side, especially from Hamas," said Hamas spokesman Mahmoud A-Zahar.

In the past Israel has reacted with tough military measures after such attacks and has blamed Yasser Arafat, saying the Palestinian Authority does nothing to prevent terrorism.

"Once again the bestial hand of Palestinian terrorism has struck at the heart of Israel," said Mark Sofer, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, adding that in the past two months Israeli forces had thwarted almost 100 attempted attacks.

"It just shows you that the Palestinian Authority and its leaders have taken no action whatsoever to stop terrorism," said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned "any attack that is targeting civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli. But he added: "We reject the Israel government finger-pointing that the Palestinian Authority is responsible."

President Bush denounced the attack.

"The president stands strongly with the people of Israel in fighting terrorism, and his message to terrorists is that their efforts will not be successful. He will continue to pursue the path to peace," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Israeli police went on alert throughout the country amid warnings that more attacks were planned, reports said.

The bombing was the second major terrorist attack in as many days, coming after Tuesday's bombing at an airport in the Philippines, which killed 21 and injured 117. There is no evidence the attacks are related.

It was the first terror attack in Israel since Jan. 5, when a pair of suicide bombers killed 23 people in Tel Aviv. Israelis had begun to relax slightly, because of the long lull in attacks. .

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a spokesman for the Islamic militant Hamas group, praised the attack but did not claim responsibility. "We will not stop our resistance," he said. "We are not going to give up in the face of the daily killing" of Palestinians.

Wednesday's attack follows an Israeli crackdown in the occupied territories following the deaths of four Israeli soldiers in an attack on their tank on Feb. 15. Hamas claimed responsibility for that bombing.

Israel's new government, which was sworn in last week, has promised stepped up military strikes against suspected militants and their infrastructure. In two weeks of back-to-back raids in Gaza and the West Bank more than 50 Palestinians have been killed.

Hamas has been vowing revenge for those killings, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.

As part of that crackdown, Israeli soldiers on Wednesday demolished the home of a suspected suicide bomber in the West Bank and removed the remains of a neighborhood mosque on the Gaza-Egypt border.

The U.S. government has protested the intensifying Israeli operations, which have led to several civilian casualties.

"We have concerns about actions that go beyond and that bring harm to the innocent, including innocent Palestinians," Fleischer said on Monday.

In a political development, Palestinians said Tuesday that Yasser Arafat is considering appointing billionaire businessman Monib al-Masri, 65, as prime minister, but officials from Arafat's Fatah movement insisted that the premier must come from Fatah, preferring Arafat's longtime deputy, Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas, a moderate, is tipped as a possible successor to Arafat. He has called the violent 29-month Palestinian struggle a mistake.