The smell of death

I just came from Neve Shanan, the site of yesterday double homicide bombings where 23 people were murdered and over a hundred wounded. The semll of fire and death is in the air.

It is a place I know too well, I have been there at least 6 times over the past two weeks to prepare a photo essay on the foreign workers community in Israel. I actually had photos of Chinese immigrants sitting just last Friday at the exact restaurant that was destroyed yesterday - they were looking at photos of their sweethearts.

The damage is unbelievable, many stores at both sides of the streets and in near by street are damaged beyond belief. Opposing the main restaurant that was hit there was a small Chinese food place - it is completely burned with food still at the Wok. 2 stories above the stores there are several severly-damaged apartments. I have seen places of suicide bombing before but this is the worst - I can not understand the scope of that damage - this is not a bomb belt - this must have been a heavy backpack or a suitcase full of explosives.

The street itself was washed but there are places on the sides where t is still bloody. The worst is all the small pieces of human remains that are smashed on the floors some as high as the 3rd floor - there were people literally scratching these remains out of the walls.

Someone showed me example of what was in the explosive charge: a bolt of about 3/8 of an inch thick cut in diagonal and sharpened at all ends to create maximum tearing affect.

The population that was wounded is mostly non-Israeli: Chinese, Philippines - including a family all of them where moderately wounded including a 6-month pregnant women who lost her baby - ukteranians, many Romanians, Russians, many Africans and more. Of course there are also Israeli victims: About half of the dead are Israeli civilians.

I do not think you will hear about it in falsepoints.

Abu