OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, June 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Sixteen people were killed and more than 70 others injured when an explosion ripped through a bus on Jaffa street in the west of occupied Jerusalem on Wednesday, June 11, police said.

"The bus was torn to shreds. There was a massive blast, it's a horrific scene," one witness was quoted as saying by public radio.

Shortly after the bus attack, six Palestinians were killed when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile on a car in the Shajayah neighborhood in Gaza City, Palestinian medical and security sources said.

“A Palestinian blew himself in the Israeli bus driving in the bustling streets” near a large market and in a rush hour where large number of workers were getting of their work,” Al-Jazeera correspondent said on air by the telephone.

The attack came a day after a senior Hamas leader survived an Israeli assassination attempt in the Gaza Strip which claimed the lives of two other Palestinians and sparked calls for bloody revenge by the resistance movement.

The bomber reportedly stepped on a bus when it was stopped at a major intersection, near the entrance of a shopping mall.

The street, west Jerusalem's main thoroughfare, has been by hit several Palestinian attacks since the start of the intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation in September 2000.

There was no immediate claim for the Jerusalem blast but senior Hamas leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, who had escaped the helicopter missile attacks with light wounds, vowed from his hospital bed "not to leave one Jew in Palestine".

"Israel is targeting Palestinian civilians, so Israeli civilians should be targeted. From now on all Israeli people are targets," said the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, on Tuesday.

The attack also comes a week after Israel and the Palestinians affirmed their commitment to a U.S.-backed peace roadmap to end the 32 months of bloodshed at a summit at Aqaba, Jordan.

Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas vowed at the summit to end the armed uprising against Israeli occupation, but was rebuffed by resistance groups, including Hamas.

The Jerusalem attack was vehemently condemned by U.S. President George W. Bush.

Rantissi jumped out of the car in time, with shrapnel injuries in his arm, leg ands chest.

Hamas vowed on Tuesday, June 10, to revenge for the targeting of Rantissi and the killing of nine Palestinians in other separate attacks hours afterwards.

Bush gave a measured condemnation of the attack on Rantissi, saying he was “deeply troubled” by the news.

Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem issued many warnings against Palestinian attacks, and they managed to abort two attacks against Israeli targets, a correspondent of the Israeli television told Al-Jazeera.

Click here to see the aftermath of the Jerusalem blast: 1 - 2 - 3