Israel confirms Palestinian suicide bomber makes Jerusalem bus attack

Israel's Shin Bet security agency confirmed Thursday that the Jerusalem bus attack earlier this week was a suicide bombing carried out by a Hamas operative from the West Bank.

Lifting a gag order on the Monday attack, the Shin Bet identified the bomber as 19-year-old Abdel al-Hamid Abu Srour from Beit Jala, a town northwest of Bethlehem. He died of his wounds in a Jerusalem hospital on Wednesday, after a bomb he carried had detonated at a bus in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot, injuring 21 people.

The Shin Bet suspects Abu Srour was part of a Hamas cell that was responsible for the attack. On Tuesday, "several" Hamas operatives from the Bethlehem area were arrested on suspicion of involvement in planning and executing the attack, according to a joint statement by the agency and the police.

The identity of the suspects remained secret under a gag order.

On Wednesday, Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and praised the bomber as "martyr."

The blast came amidst a seven-month-long Palestinian unrest, with frequent knife, shooting, and car-ramming attacks in the West Bank and Israel. The violence claimed the lives of at least 200 Palestinians and 28 Israelis.

It was the first time in the recent wave of violence that explosives were used. Palestinian suicide bombings were common in buses and other public areas in Israel throughout the mid-90s and early 2000s, at the time of the second armed Palestinian uprising (intifada).

Israel accuses the Palestinian National Authority of "inciting" the current round of violence while the Palestinians claim it is the result of 49 years of Israeli occupation of their lands. Endit