A suicide bomber killed at least one Israeli and wounded 10 others at a shopping center near Tel Aviv on Tuesday in the first major bomb attack since Palestinian militants declared a truce six weeks ago, police said.
A police official confirmed the blast in the town of Rosh Ha-Ayin was the work of a suicide bomber and said two bodies has been recovered.
”At least one Israeli was killed in an explosives attack in Rosh Ha-Ayin,” Uri Bar-Lev, local police official, told public radio.
Doron Kotler, an official of the Maguen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, said one of the wounded was in critical condition, four serious and five slightly wounded.
It was the first major bomb attack since militant Palestinian groups declared a truce in their conflict with Israel on June 29 and occurred as William Burns, senior US diplomat for the Middle East, was due here on Tuesday to discuss US-backed peace efforts.
The blast came five days after an Israeli raid on the West Bank town of Nablus that left four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier dead.
The armed wing of the militant group Hamas has promised to avenge the raid, but no group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion on Tuesday.
Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesperson, lashed out at the Palestinian Authority for failing to take action to neutralise the radical groups.
”We advised the Palestinian Authority that the Palestinian terrorist organisations were preparing attacks against Israel and it did nothing,” said Pazner.
”We formally call on Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to dismantle the terrorist organisations, arrest their members and round up their arms according to the commitments made at the Aqaba summit two months ago,” Pazner said.
He was referring to the gathering of US President George Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas that launched a US-backed ”roadmap” for peace aimed at establishing a Palestinian state by 2005. – Sapa-AFP