Palestinian bomber strikes in Israel

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up, critically wounding two guards at an Israeli bus station on Sunday in the first such attack si...

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up, critically wounding two guards at an Israeli bus station on Sunday in the first such attack since the eviction of Jewish settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in Beersheba, three days after troops killed five Palestinians in a raid on a militant hideout in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, drawing a vow of revenge from the Islamic Jihad group. A police spokesman said nearly 50 people were treated at hospital, most of them for shock. The two guards, who chased the bomber, were critically hurt, the spokesman said.

The explosion, at the entrance to Beersheba’s central bus station, followed a call by US President George W. Bush for the Palestinians to respond to last week’s pullout from occupied Gaza by showing ‘‘they will fight terrorism’’. Bush, who hopes the Gaza withdrawal will help revive a US-backed peace ‘‘road map’’ envisaging a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel, stopped short of demanding President Mahmoud Abbas dismantle militant groups.

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Abbas condemned the suicide bombing, calling it ‘‘a terrorist attack’’ in a statement issued by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. He described Israel’s Tulkarm raid as a ‘‘provocation’’ and urged all sides to show restraint.

PM Ariel Sharon’s cabinet took a key step towards ending Israel’s 38-year-old military presence in Gaza. By a vote of 18-2, it approved the deployment of 750 Egyptian border police on the Egyptian side of the Gaza frontier to replace Israeli troops trying to prevent arms smuggling to Palestinian militants.

Meanwhile in Gaza, Israeli Army rabbis dug up bodies from a settler cemetery for reburial in the Jewish state, starting a particularly sensitive stage of the withdrawal. —Reuters

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