Jerusalem, 8:48 am
Charles Johnson
Fri Jan 30, 2004 at 6:02 pm PST • Views: 216
Bret Stephens lives near the site of yesterday’s terrorist mass murder in Jerusalem. Here is his heart-breakingly surreal account of what he witnessed: Jerusalem, 8:48 am.
Survivors lay on the pavement. One elderly man had flecks of human tissue on the back of his coat and scalp, but otherwise he seemed uninjured. Another man was bleeding from his ear, which had been sliced in half. A woman held her face in her hands, and everything was covered in blood.It was still very quiet, or at least it seemed that way to me. I don’t remember any police there, although surely there must have been some. The ground was covered in glass; every window of the bus had been blasted. Inside the wreckage, I could see three very still corpses and one body that rocked back and forth convulsively. Outside the bus, another three corpses were strewn on the ground, one face-up, two face-down. There was a large piece of torso ripped from its body, which I guessed was the suicide bomber’s. Elsewhere on the ground, more chunks of human flesh: a leg, an arm, smaller bits, pools of blood.
NOW THE police and ambulances began to arrive in great numbers. How much time had elapsed I do not know. They began herding non-official personnel to the sidelines. My secretary called to tell me there had been a suicide bombing. I said: I know, I’m there. Also, she said, Independent Radio wanted to speak to me, would that be alright? Why not? I was patched through to a studio in London. It took me two or three minutes to describe the scene. “That’ll do nicely,” said the voice on the other end. “Cheers.”
Frank says: