Lightning struck twice for terror victims

TEL AVIV - Dozens of Israelis have been wounded in more than one Palestinian terrorist attack since the start of a four-year-old Palestinian uprising, which claimed the lives of more than 700 Israeli civilians, including more than 100 children, an Israeli study showed.

The report, conducted by the National Insurance Institute and Hebrew University in Jerusalem, showed that 17 of the 113 Israelis who were injured in two attacks had experienced bombings within two months apart. Seventy had lived through two attacks within a time span of two years.

Palestinian terrorists have killed 742 Israeli civilians since the start of the uprising in September 2000 and 63 had died in such attacks in 2004, National Insurance Institute chief Dr. Yigal Ben Shalom told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. About 18 percent of the dead, or 133, were children, the report said.

Israel's security services issue dozens of alerts for potential bombings every week in Israel, which is home to 6.9 million people. Many cities are mere miles away from Palestinian towns.

Attacks sharply decreased in past 2 years

The study showed 30 percent of all Israelis injured in Palestinian terror attacks were from Jerusalem, which is surrounded by Palestinian cities and villages and borders Arab neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city.

Twenty percent of Israelis wounded in bombings were from the center of the country, while 18 percent were from the north and 13.5 percent lived in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Terror attacks have sharply decreased in the past two years, a decline Israel credits to a security barrier it is building in the West Bank to stop suicide bombers.

The biggest bombings have impacted entire families. The report showed that 100 people who were wounded in bombings and receive disability allowances from the National Insurance Institute had lost a family member in the same attacks.