RP-born woman among wounded in Israel bombing

A woman born in the Philippines was among those wounded in the terrorist bombing of a passenger bus in central Tel Aviv in Israel last Thursday.

A Philippine labor official in Tel Aviv said Evelyn Friedman, who is married to an Israeli, was aboard bus line No. 4 when a Palestinian man walked into the vehicle at around 1 p.m. and blew himself up.

Five people were killed and about 50 were wounded. Torn bodies lay in the bus seats and the street outside.

One of the passengers said the suicide bomber, a man with a mustache and black hair, suddenly appeared behind her wearing a zipped-up jacket.

"I told the driver," said the shaken woman. "Then I barely had a chance to get off the bus when it exploded."

After the explosion, passengers — who were mostly foreign workers and tourists — leaped out of the bus through shattered windows.

The passengers said they asked the driver to open the door of the bus but that there was no response because he was already dead.

Slumped at the wheel, the driver’s body was all blackened by the powerful explosion and a Tasmanian Devil cartoon figure hung scorched but intact above the bus door.

The window of the musical instruments store nearby was peppered with holes from the metal bolts and nails packed into the bomb for greater deadliness.

"People were hurting, screaming," said a passerby who helped some of the wounded.

The scene of the terrorist attack was a cultural crossroads, an area where stockholders sip latte in cafes and migrant laborers down cheap vodka on plastic chairs in the shadow of office towers, restored Bauhaus buildings and the shabbiest of walk-ups.

Meanwhile, Labor and Employment Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said yesterday a planned crackdown on illegal workers in Israel may be suspended because of lack of detention centers.

Quoting Labor Attaché Jeffrey Cortazar in Tel Aviv, Sto. Tomas said Filipino deportees in Israel are treated well in hotel-like detention centers in condominiums.

"Detention centers (in Israel) are very clean and well-maintained, each room has three double decks with mattresses, pillows, fresh bed sheets and pillow cases," she quoted Cortazar.

Sto. Tomas said doctors also make daily rounds of detention centers to provide medicine to detained workers, including Filipinos, if they are needed.

"Food is adequate and vending machines for cigarette and softdrinks are available," she said.

Sto. Tomas said there are also public telephones for the use of detainees who can be visited between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. everyday.

"Detainees are also provided with shavers, soap, shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste," she said.

Filipinos in Israel are likely to be re-employed and not deported after they have processed their work permits, Sto. Tomas quoted Cortazar as saying. – Mayen Jaymalin