Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Brigades – the military wing of Fateh - have claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a bus close to an Israeli army training camp near the city of Hadera that killed three people and wounded nine on Thursday. The attack put Israel on alert Friday, and disturbed the peace mission of US envoys, said reports.
The suicide bomber, who was also killed in the attack, boarded the bus in the northern Arab village of Umm Al Fahm, said the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz newspaper.
The explosion took place on an Egged 823 bus en route from Nazereth to Tel Aviv. The Egged bus company said that the bus was mostly empty at the time of the explosion.
Two of those killed in the attack were Inbal Weiss, 22, from Zichron Ya'acov and Ichiav Alshayd, 28, from Hadera. The name of the third victim has not yet been released. The nine wounded - one in moderate condition and eight suffering from light injuries - were taken to Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera.
AFP named the attacker as Samer Abu Suleiman, a member of the Islamic Jihad from the West Bank village of Silat Al Harthiyya, near Jenin.
"The terrorist sat in the centre of the bus and blew himself up in the middle of the journey," said Avi Zohar, director general of the Magen David Adom ambulance service. "The terrorist's body is completely crushed and destroyed."
The driver of the bus, who was lightly injured in the attack, said that the bomber - who was dressed in "tailored clothes" - had waved goodbye to two people before boarding the bus.
As usual, Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner blamed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the attack. "These terrorist attacks are the means by which the Palestinian Authority undermines the peace mission of [retired US] general Zinni," Pazner said. "This is a very serious escalation, the responsibility for which is entirely on the Palestinian Authority."
Zinni, the US special peace envoy, on Friday accused radical groups of trying to abort his peace mission, according to AFP.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack Thursday night. "The Palestinian leadership condemns the attack on Israeli civilians and the authority reaffirms that it is working in its full capacity to put an end to all sorts of attacks against Israeli civilians," a spokesman for the authority said.
He said Palestinian security agencies had been instructed to investigate the attack, to "chase the perpetrators and bring them to justice."
"We call on the Israeli side to stop its assaults and to stop assassinations which only increases tension," the spokesman said, as quoted by Haaretz.
In the Palestinian refugee camp in the nearby West Bank city of Jenin, where several previous suicide bombers have left on their deadly missions, about 3,000 people marched and celebrated after the bus attack, witnesses said. They chanted, "Sharon, prepare the body bags," referring to the prime minister.
Jenin has been under a tight Israeli siege, and frustrated Palestinians are living under deterorating economic and security situations.
ISRAEL ON ALERT
Israel was on a state of high alert and deployed thousands of extra troops Friday after the Palestinian suicide bombing, said AFP.
"Israeli warplanes and tanks continue to shell our houses, cities and refugee camps and destroy everything. The Palestinian people cannot remain silent," a Jihad spokesman, Abdullah Al Shami, was quoted by the agency as saying in the Gaza Strip.
The agency said that an Israeli army unit arrested three members of the resistance group during an overnight incursion in the divided West Bank town of Hebron, Palestinian sources said.
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, Israeli 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 bombings in past months.
Meanwhile, Arafat's Fateh movement issued a statement after the attack, but not mentioning it, urging Palestinians to respect a ceasefire with Israel.
Fourteen people - seven on both sides - have been killed since the US envoys arrived in the region on Monday to push for a ceasefire, while scores more have been injured.
A new poll published Friday in the daily Jerusalem Post also showed that almost two-thirds of Israelis now view the creation of an independent Palestinian state as a "threat" to the security of their own country.
The latest killings pushed the death toll to 1,006, including 787 Palestinians and 197 Israelis, in the Palestinian uprising which erupted in September 2000, according to AFP’s tally.
Palestinians are rebelling against 34 years of Israeli military occupation of huge swathes of land seized from Palestinian owners in 1967.
According to the UK-based magazine The Economist, Israel has "flouted" the 1993 Oslo peace accords by moving tens of thousands of "settlers" onto the occupied land – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
