Israeli nerves were back on edge on Thursday after a twin suicide blast in the heart of their biggest city wiped out growing hopes of a return to something like normal life after a military crackdown on the Palestinians.
One Israeli and two immigrant workers were killed with the two Palestinian bombers in the first such attack in a month, despite the reoccupation of most of the West Bank by the army since the previous bombing in Jerusalem.
Police said 32 people were wounded, four seriously. They declined to identify the dead Israeli or give the nationalities of the two immigrants.
The attack occurred as Israelis started to mark their high holy day of Tisha B’Av, commemorating the destruction of the first and second Jewish temples.
The bombers blew themselves up simultaneously 20 metres apart in a downtown area full of snack stands, coffee shops and the central cinema, which is frequented by foreign workers.
Police said they had placed Tel Aviv on alert, set up road blocks at entrances to the city and increased patrols in a bid to prevent new suicide strikes.
It was the second anti-Israeli attack in two days but the first in Israel since two suicide blasts in Jerusalem killed 26 people on June 18 and 19, prompting the army to move back into seven out of the West Bank’s eight cities.
Eight Israelis died following an ambush on a bus on Tuesday in the West Bank, as top diplomats from the United Nations, United States, Russia and the European Union were about to meet to discuss the Middle East.
In the wake of the Tel Aviv blasts Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer’s office announced the freezing of unspecified ”alleviation measures …. in the sphere of trade and industry for the Palestinian population.”
And the government indicated that more security measures were likely.
”We know that we cannot succeed 100% ” in preventing Palestinian attacks, representative Avi Pazner said. ”We have now a rate of 90%, we will try to increase it to 96, 97 or 98%.
”Over the last few days, there was a lot of talk about us alleviating the situation of the Palestinians … who live in very harsh surroundings,” he said, adding that ”now, we will not be able to do that.”
An anonymous caller claiming to represent Islamic Jihad told AFP the radical group was responsible for the bombing, but Israel blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s ”policy of incitement to violence”.
Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdelrahman said in a statement, ”We condemn this operation. This will not help the Palestinian people.”
But he added: ”Israel bears part of the responsibility because of its continuing occupation of our territories and our towns.”
US President George Bush also condemned the latest bombings, which came as he prepared to meet on Thursday with the foreign ministers of key Arab allies Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Bush hopes to secure their support for reform of Palestinian institutions, which he sees as a precondition for the creation of a Palestinian state.
”Peace cannot be built on a platform of violence against innocents,” he said in a statement late on Wednesday which also expressed condolences to the victims’ families.
”These terrorist acts are also attacks on our efforts to restore hope to the Palestinian people,” he said.
Bush added that there was now ”broad international consensus … on the need to support Palestinian reform, address the urgent humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people and restore momentum toward a two-state solution.”
The meeting in New York of the diplomatic ”quartet” on the Middle East had produced ”positive” and ”interesting” developments, White House representative Ari Fleischer said earlier on Wednesday.
The ”quartet” members endorsed Bush’s call for a Palestinian state within three years, which was welcomed as ”encouraging and balanced” by the Palestinian Authority.
But US officials acknowledged that Washington stood alone in its desire to see Arafat out of the frame.
”We all agree we need practical steps to create the institutions, to create the divisions of government, the responsibilities, the accountability that will give the humanitarian support, that will give the Palestinians the kind of leadership they need and want and that will give them the prospect of a state,” said State Department representative Richard Boucher.
”We quite clearly disagree on what to expect from Chairman Arafat and how we deal with him, whether we do or we don’t,” Boucher said.
At a press conference Bush sidestepped a question as to whether he supported a largely-ceremonial role for Arafat advocated by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
”I know the Palestinian people will be better served by new leadership. When you analyse his record, he has failed the Palestinian people. He just has, and that’s reality,” Bush said.
Arafat dismissed Bush’s calls for his ouster and announced for the first time on Wednesday that he intended to run in January elections.
Bush, who in a policy speech in June called on the Palestinians to vote out a leadership that was ”compromised by terror,” said it was crucial to remember that the issue was ”much bigger than a single person.” – Sapa-AFP