An Arab suicide bomber murdered a young Jewish couple at 7:15 Saturday evening in Hevron. The husband and pregnant wife were on their way to attend Sabbath evening prayer services in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood in the ancient Jewish town, located 17 miles south of Jerusalem.

The terrorist was disguised as a Jew, wearing a knit yarmulke and white shirt. He reached the main street via a gate leading from an Arab cemetery below the Abu Sneineh hills. An army officer who saw and suspected the terrorist, called him to stop. The terrorist, realizing that he was caught, thwarted his plans to infiltrate the Avraham Avinu neighborhood and exploded himself next to a Jewish couple from nearby Kiryat Arba. The husband was pronounced dead on the scene. His wife was taken in critical condition to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem where she died. These are the 26th and 27th people to be killed by Arab terrorists in the Hevron region in the past six months. The wife was pregnant with the couple’s first child. She leaves behind two children from a previous marriage.

One hundred local residents and guests were gathered in the courtyard of the Avraham Avinu neighborhood only tens of meters away from the scene of the murder. The alertness of the soldiers prevented what could have been a massacre had the terrorist reached his destination.

The Arab suicide terrorist who perpetrated the attack was identified as Fuad el Huasme from the notorious Huasme clan, known for its connections to Hamas.
A Hevron paramedic, the first civilian to reach the site of the attack, between Gross square and Ma’arat HaMachpela, said that the bodies of the couple were “badly torn apart.”

A Hevron spokesman issued the following statement:

“Tonight’s terror killing is Abu Mazen and Mohammed Dahlan’s greeting to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. Before meeting with the ‘head of the Zionist entity’ they had to provide their ‘people’ with more blood, justifying their meeting with Sharon. Should Sharon insist on shaking hands with these terrorist leaders, he should be encouraged to wear gloves. Otherwise, his hands will too, be stained with the blood of hundreds and thousands of Jews, killed, wounded and maimed by these murderers.

Since Abu Mazen’s appointment as prime minister of the PA, Arab terrorism has increased. In the past two weeks two Jews were murdered in the Shomron by terrorists holed up in Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters, the Mukattah. Sharon and Mofaz have yet to give the orders to go in and get them.
We demand that Ariel Sharon cancel tonight’s scheduled meeting with the terrorists. Only weeks ago Abu Mazen, in a publicized interview, encouraged continued killing of ‘settlers.’ He is just as responsible for tonight’s murder, as is his boss, Arafat. A Sharon-Abu Mazen meeting tonight is a blatant prize for terror. Rather than meet with the terrorists, Sharon should order their arrest, toss them in a cell, and dispose of the keys.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2003 and is filed under hotnews.