Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said on Tuesday that Israel was ultimately responsible for a suicide bombing that wounded 13 people Tuesday in central Jerusalem.
"It is the Israeli government which is responsible for all attacks wherever they happen, whether the victims are Palestinians or Israelis," he told AFP, following the blast which wounded 13 people, two seriously.
Israel "is the only side that should be held responsible for that because of its continued policy of aggression," Abed Rabbo said.
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began in September 2000, and the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed stands at around four to one.
Israel, meanwhile, blamed Tuesday's suicide bombing on the Palestinian Authority, saying it was a consequence of the "incitement to hatred" against Israel by Arab and Muslim countries at the UN racism conference in Durban, South Africa.
"Apparently, all the millions of dollars that the Sharon government spends on public relations did not help it from being labeled by almost everybody as the only racist country," Abed Rabbo said, referring to the conference which Israel and the United States quit late Monday.
Tuesday’s explosion took place near the Bikur Holim Hospital on Hanevi'im Street, which is near the Sbarro restaurant where a suicide bomber blew himself up several weeks ago, killing 15 people.
Jerusalem police chief Mikki Levy said that the blast was "extremely powerful" and that the bomber had blown himself up next to a group of people.
Israel Radio said the bomber was disguised as a Jewish settler, with a beard and a kippa on his head.
A doctor at Bikur Holim Hospital told Haaretz that the casualties were suffering from burns and injuries inflicted by the nails, screws and shards of metal incorporated into the bomb.
Police have closed off the area and set up roadblocks, said Haaretz.
Meanwhile, two Palestinians were killed in serious clashes with the Israeli army on Monday.
The violence also left 28 Palestinians wounded in the West Bank city of Hebron, with hopes of a peace breakthrough fading further, said AFP.
The killing of Imad Al Batsh, 19, and 23-year-old Amjad Al Jamal brought the toll in the most recent 11 months of Israeli occupation to 765 dead, the overwhelming majority Palestinian civilians, after hours of clashes erupted in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The city, where 400 Israeli settlers live amid 120,000 Palestinians, again exploded in bloodshed after Palestinians threw a bomb at the Jewish enclave and then opened fire on Israeli troops, according to Israeli army sources.
The army said it returned fire. Palestinian hospital sources said Jamal was shot twice in the head when running to give assistance to Batsh, who they said was on the roof of his house when gunned down by Israeli troops.
The army sources said two Israeli soldiers were wounded, one moderately and one lightly, AFP added.
Earlier in the day, Israel's US-made helicopter gunships destroyed a Palestinian intelligence office at the western entrance of Hebron in what the army said was retaliation for earlier bomb attacks in the occupied east Jerusalem that wounded five Israelis.
The military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the operation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who made waves of his own Monday by snubbing the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana, vowed Sunday that Israel would not accept any more attacks on the Gilo settlement in east Jerusalem.
According to Amnesty International, Israeli soldiers have killed roughly 100 Palestinian children, nearly all in situations where the safety of the occupation forces was in no immediate danger – Albawaba.com
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