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Jerrold Kessel: Bloodstains, shoes, shattered glasses

CNN's Jerrold Kessel
CNN's Jerrold Kessel  


(CNN) -- A suicide attack in the Israeli coastal town of Rishon Letziona Tuesday killed 15 people and injured dozens of others, Israeli officials said. CNN's Jerrold Kessel filed a report Wednesday from the scene of the attack.

KESSEL: Death, destruction, devastation and despair, as Israelis begin to contemplate these grisly scenes in the third story of this industrial zone, where this gaming parlor was in existence and which was a very crowded place when the bomber struck.

It was just about 10 minutes before 11 in the evening when the bomber, just around here, we're told, in this corner, blew himself up. The bloodstains on the roof are perhaps evidence of that. And all around are bloodstains on the carpet, or what remains of the carpet.

The ceiling, the acoustic ceiling and what was above it, came crashing down and clearly here is one of the billiard tables completely knocked asunder, the very heavy wooden feet of the table knocked apart. The table comes down and there you have the lights above it and all the debris from the roof, also some of the surgical gloves used by the rescue teams and then by the forensic experts.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO
CNN's Jerrold Kessel tours the damage at the scene of the first suicide bombing in almost a month and sizes up the political ramifications of the attack (May 8)

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Forensic experts were here taking away whatever they could find to help establish how the bomb was constructed, what was in it and any other evidence that might help them in the future.

And then the personal effects, all those small personal effects, all the effects around, the billiard balls on the table itself left in place, the pink and the black sandwiches uneaten, a small purse, a plastic purse containing some personal belongings, a shoe, one shoe here, one shoe there. A pack of cigarettes only partially opened, a little sweet, a candy, pen, personal papers.

There's a pair of sunglasses with one of the lenses smashed out. And then something which the forensic experts were picking up as we watched them work. Left behind, one of these, a screw, a nut and a bolt that they've been able, that they have been picking up all along and this is what suicide bombers and other attackers have been accustomed to use to increase the effect of their bombs.

And then down on the floor, of course, you get, well, more shoes, more bloodstained papers and personal papers, accounts, things that might have been unopened, some of them, in people's pockets as the bomber struck. And now, as the rescue work has been completed, as the devastation is assessed, now comes the time for political assessment and perhaps for political reassessment.



 
 
 
 







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