Bus station evacuated due to fake bomb

[Erikl 159]

Bus station evacuated due to fake bomb

By MATTHEW GUTMAN AND JPOST STAFF

Jerusalem's Central Bus Station was completely

evacuated Monday night after suspected far-right

activists placed a bag with a gas balloon in the men's washroom, police said.

Police sappers were rushed to the scene of the

heavily-guarded city station, while hundreds of

passengers making their way home were escorted out of the building and traffic was halted in the area, causing major traffic jams throughout the central Jerusalem area.

The suspicious bag, with a watch, wires, and a 12

kilogram gas balloon attached to it, was found on the men's third-floor washroom at about 7:30 p.m.

For the next hour, police sappers worked to neutralize the device, which they determined was a dummy explosive.

"The disengagement will explode in your faces" a note inside the bag read.

Security at the central bus station is among the

tightest in the city. All people entering the building must pass through a metal detector, while all bags are X-rayed.

Over the last several months, opponents of the Gaza pullout plan have placed 'dummy bombs' on several major Jerusalem thoroughfares.

In March, a suitcase with a note on it denouncing the withdrawal from Gaza was left on a main Jerusalem street and was treated as a potential bomb.

The locked bag, which had been placed on Jaffa Road near the Mahane Yehuda market, had on it a message reading 'the cancellation of the disengagement plan will prevent suspicious objects, real or otherwise.'

SOURCE