[citation needed] Ayyash rigged a 1987 Opel Ascona with seven gas cylinders, five anti-personnel hand grenades, and wrapped the bomb in a rucksack containing 1,100 carpenter nails.

[4] Around 12:10 pm, during Holocaust Memorial Day, a Palestinian suicide bomber drove a vehicle full of explosives into the division nine street in downtown Afula.

[5] A few hours after the blast, Hamas issued a communique stating that the bombing was carried out by a 19-year-old Palestinian named Ra'id Zaqarna, who originated from the village of Qabatya in the West Bank and who was a member of the Abdel el-Rahman Hamadan militant cell of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Police said they found a banner denouncing the Oslo peace process, and a Koran, the Islamic holy book, near the debris of the car.

[4] Hamas publicly declared that the attack was one of 5 planned to retaliate for the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in which the Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein machine-gunned 29 Muslims dead at prayer, wounding another 125.

[3][8] Then Shin Bet head's advisor on Palestinian affairs Matti Steinberg explained that Hamas had until then refrained from attacking civilian targets inside Israel, and the change in this policy was a result of Goldstein's massacre.