A massive bomb demolished an armor-plated jeep in a convoy carrying U.S. diplomats personnel in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, killing three Americans.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident, the first deadly attack on an official American target in the three years of the intifada. Three months ago, a roadside bomb was detonated beside an American convoy traveling in the same area, but without injury, Israel Radio reported.
The American officials were headed Wednesday to discuss the awarding of study grants to Gaza Palestinians.
The victims of the blast were security men hired from a private company, not U.S. government officials. Israel Radio reported that one of the victims was identified as an East Jerusalem resident who was the driver of the vehicle.
The blast went off around 10:15 A.M. Wednesday as a three-car U.S. diplomatic convoy drove near a gas station on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, along the main north-south road.
Both the militant Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements denied responsibility for the attack.
Witnesses at the scene said a silver Cherokee jeep used by American diplomats was completely destroyed by the blast. Parts of the vehicle were strewn in a 30-meter radius around a crater created by the explosion.
The explosion tore the car in half and left the wreckage twisted with the
tires up in the air. The pavenment was stained with blood and littered with bits of flesh.
An AP reporter saw a gray wire with an on-off switch leading from the scene of the attack to a small concrete room at the side of the road.
Soon after after the blast, the IDF sent tanks and armored vehicles under cover of a helicopter gunship into the northern Gaza areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lehiya to aid the Americans in evacuating the wounded man and the bodies of the victims.
An IDF rescue helicopter evacuated the wounded man to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.
Israeli military sources said that it remained unclear whether the explosion had been a roadside bomb or if a suicide bomber had caused the blast.