Three buses were set ablaze in parking lots in the Tel Aviv area on Thursday evening in what appeared to have been a coordinated terrorist bombing attack.
? MASSIVE TERROR ATTACK FAILS IN ISRAEL: Three empty parked buses just exploded in the city of Bat Yam. An additional two buses were found with explosive devices. All had timers on them, which malfunctioned. pic.twitter.com/xvlfIjLuST
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 20, 2025
The first explosion took place at around 8:30 pm at a bus depot near the stadium in the suburb of Bat Yam. A second bus blew up in a parking lot about 400 meters (a quarter of a mile) away, also in Bat Yam.
A third explosion was reported shortly after, in a bus depot near the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, about four kilometers’ (2.5 miles) distance from the first two incidents.
Police subsequently discovered two unexploded bombs attached to buses in both Tel Aviv suburbs, including one on which there was writing in Arabic saying “Revenge for Tulkarem camp” and which weighed five kilograms (11 pounds).
“The explosive devices were found with timers. I can say they were crude; they appear to be from the West Bank,” Tel Aviv District Police Commander Chaim Sargrof told journalists.
Security officials said the attacks were carried out by a terrorist cell from Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria.
Miraculously, the timers on the bombs were erroneously set for 9 pm instead of 9 am, when the terrorists intended to set off simultaneous attacks in five separate locations and the buses would have been full.
Another miracle: no injuries were reported.
“This is an incident occurring simultaneously at multiple locations. As of now, searches on trains and buses have been completed, and we are working to determine how many suspects are involved,” Sargrof said.
A source in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the prime minister was receiving regular updates on the situation and was set to conduct a security situation assessment.
Netanyahu “views the incident with great seriousness and will order strong action against the terrorist elements in Judea and Samaria,” his office said.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who was in Morocco at the time, also held a security situation assessment with law enforcement and officials from the ministry.
Regev instructed the head of the Public Transportation Authority to halt all train and bus operations, follow police and security directives and resume services in accordance with guidance from the Shin Bet and police, the ministry said in a statement.
Bus drivers who were in transit were told to pull over as soon as possible and inspect their vehicles for suspicious items.
