Palestinian suicide bomber sparks new fear among Israelis

An Israeli soldier was slightly hurt in what was the first suicide attack since hostilities erupted last month. The army said the incident raised the chances of similar guerrilla bombing attempts inside Israel itself.

The fresh violence left it unclear whether a proposal by President Clinton to invite Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to Washington to try to quell the violence would get off the ground. Islamic Jihad, a fierce opponent of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords which have been shattered by the unrest, said its "Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Brigades” military arm stood behind the attack.

“We stress to the leaders of the criminal enemy that this suicide attack was not the first and will not be the last,” its statement said. The army said the bomber appeared to have been carrying a satchel or book bag. Israel Radio said he had been carrying about 6 kg of explosives on his back in the attack on the main north-south Gaza road near an army post guarding the entrance to the Kissufim Jewish settlement.

"It is clear he came to commit suicide,” said Major-General Yom-Tov Samia, Israel’s southern commander responsible for the Gaza Strip. The attack coincided with the fifth anniversary of the assassination in Malta of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shqaqi, widely believed to have been killed by Israel.

“We are very proud of what our relative has done,” Abdel-Rahim al-Arair, a cousin, said at the bomber’s Gaza home. Islamic Jihad and the rival Hamas movement have carried out suicide attacks in Israel that have killed scores of people in buses, open-air markets and other public places. Fresh clashes between stone-throwing Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops erupted in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Hebron, Qalqilya and Tulkarm. Israeli troops fired rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas to disperse the demonstrators.

A Palestinian official said Israel should accept the blame for the suicide bombing because “Israeli aggression” had caused the tensions which provoked it. “What happened was the result of the bitter reality imposed on the Palestinian people by the Israeli aggression. I hold the Israeli side fully responsible for the escalation of tension,” Palestinian legislator Marwan Kanafani told Reuters.

The violence followed two days of relative calm during heavy storms in the Palestinian-ruled parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and erupted despite the first meetings between security officials from both sides for two weeks. Although there was no clear sign of progress from the meetings, an Israeli general said he was heartened by the joint bid to restore security cooperation following bloodshed in which at least 132 people, almost all of them Arabs, have died.

Several cease-fires have failed to end the violence and the prospects for Clinton’s proposal to invite the warring leaders to Washington for separate talks remained uncertain. Neither Barak nor Arafat has commented publicly on Clinton’s proposal, but neither side seemed in a rush to go to Washington.

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said he feared the parties had reached a point at which dialogue was impossible. The Israeli army, which has denounced Arafat for freeing dozens of Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants since the eruption of violence, blamed the Palestinian Authority for giving a "green light” to militant bombers.

Major-General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh, director of public security in the Palestinian Authority, dismissed Israel’s claim as “lies, fabrications and groundless accusations.” Mahmoud al-Zahhar, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said Arafat would convene a meeting of all political factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, later in the day.

Clashes erupted following a visit by right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon on September 28 to a Jerusalem site holy to Muslims and Jews. Palestinians said the visit by the former Israeli general defiled the site. Some Israelis say tensions had risen after a roadside bomb killed an Israeli soldier in Gaza a day earlier.

Politically weakened, Barak is trying to draw Sharon into an emergency coalition which Palestinians and left-wing Israelis view as the end to any chance of returning to peace talks. Barak wants to forge a broad front to tackle the unrest, which the army said earlier this week could last a long time. Major-General Giora Eiland, chief of Israeli army operations, said on Thursday he could not rule out unrest erupting in other parts of the Middle East. He told Army Radio that he hoped there were “enough brakes along the way” to prevent this happening but added: “Something that begins small can always develop into something more.”