Bomb Blast in Tel Aviv Kills Three

TEL AVIV — To a terror-weary nation, the scene of Israel’s latest fatal bombing Thursday looked bleakly familiar: the jagged and gaping storefront, the carpet of smashed glass, the squad of well-practiced religious volunteers gathering strewn fragments of the dead for proper burial.

But this blast, which killed three people and injured more than 30 others, was different from the suicide attacks that have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians during the three-year Palestinian uprising.

This time, police said, the attack was about crime, not politics, and the target was not the civic psyche but a reputed organized crime boss, Zeev Rosenstein.

Authorities said Rosenstein, named in the Israeli media as the most powerful figure in Israel’s underworld, has shown a knack for frustrating the efforts of would-be assassins, surviving five previous attempts on his life since 1996.

He apparently did so again Thursday after a bomb planted in the awning of a money-changing shop exploded, injuring Rosenstein and a bodyguard, police said. The dead included the shop owner’s 19-year-old son, a messenger leaving the business when the bomb went off and a passerby.

Like terror bombings, the latest blast took place on a busy commercial avenue in downtown Tel Aviv.

Initial news of a fresh afternoon explosion came as a jolt to a nation that has endured a string of recent terror alerts but no bombings against civilians in more than two months.

The explosion was originally thought to be an act of terrorism. But even as emergency workers were still carrying victims from the gutted shop, police were declaring the incident the work of criminals, not terrorists.

“The first indicator was that Zeev Rosenstein was here and his bodyguard was injured,” said Maj. Gen. Yossi Sedbon, the Tel Aviv district commander of the national police.

Rosenstein was treated in a local hospital and was interviewed by police Thursday night.

Twice before, Sedbon said, authorities had intercepted assassins planning to kill Rosenstein. In October, police foiled a plot to kill him and his business partner in which explosive bundles had been left outside the associate’s home.

Last January, five people were injured in a blast believed ignited by remote control as Rosenstein was leaving the offices of a Tel Aviv firm that arranges gambling tours abroad. He was slightly injured in that attack.

In August, a bomb killed a woman and wounded four others at a Tel Aviv restaurant that was linked to crime figures, but the target was not known.

Just Monday, Rosenstein was released from custody after police discovered inconsistencies in information from a witness concerning Rosenstein’s links to organized crime. He had been in custody for a few days.

Israeli authorities said Thursday’s bombing was the latest sign of a worrisome rise in organized-crime activity here.

Much attention in recent years has focused on the influence of the Russian mafia in money-laundering and other organized crime. Rosenstein is Israeli.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced that his Cabinet would hold a special meeting Sunday to discuss the rising crime wave, and Israeli police commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki vowed to wage war on organized crime.

Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said authorities had been consumed with combating terrorist attacks during the last three years, but would have to redouble efforts against organized crime as well.

“Innocent people dying -- whether it’s a criminal bomb or a terrorist bomb -- is wrong,” Kleiman said.

As he spoke, emergency workers and shopkeepers went about the well-worn rituals of cleaning up after a bombing attack.

The blast blew out the facade of the money-changing store and smashed shop windows as far as 75 feet away. Refrigerator-sized clumps of tangled aluminum siding lay about, wadded like paper. Two lanes full of cars, some with shattered windshields, sat driverless where the vehicles had come to a stop.

If there was a sense of relief that the latest episode, while tragic, did not represent a new round of political bombings, Zion Nagar was feeling none. The jeweler was down the street doing errands when he heard sirens and hurried to the site.

Watching the cleanup effort, he said the notion of a criminal bombing added to his fear that the country was becoming more violent. “I don’t know which way to turn,” Nagar said.

“It’s one thing if they kill with one bullet. But to come to a stage where they kill with such an amount of explosives, it’s terrible.”

*

Special correspondent Tami Zer contributed to this report.