The Palestinian radical movement Islamic Jihad on Friday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on an Israeli bus the previous day that killed three people as well as the assailant.
"A member of Islamic Jihad, Samir Abu Suleiman, 34, from Silat al-Harithiya village north of Jenin, carried out this attack," said an anonymous caller to AFP in the West Bank town of Nablus.
After the Thursday night attack, the Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called on the "Palestinian people to fully implement the ceasefire" with Israel.
But the Fatah statement made no specific mention of the bus bombing near Pardes Hanna in northern Israel that raised to 1,006 the death toll of the Palestinian uprising since September 2000.
Israel goes on high alert
Israeli police went on a high state of alert Friday and deployed reinforcements in Jerusalem and north of Tel Aviv after a suicide bombing.
Around 2,500 police were posted in Jerusalem to foil further attacks and keep order after the third weekly Friday prayers of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at the mosques complex, police spokesman Gil Kleiman told AFP.
Reinforcements were also sent to the Saron coastal valley north of Tel Aviv, notably Netanya, a target of Palestinian suicide bombers in past months.
Police said that border guards also stepped up patrols along the "Green Line" that divides Israel from the West Bank, to ward against infiltration bids.
Checkpoints were set up around several Israeli towns, notably in the southern Negev desert, after a suicide bomber killed three Israelis on a bus in northern Israel late Thursday—(AFP)
