Five Israelis were killed and dozens more wounded on Wednesday when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy marketplace, the first deadly attack inside the Jewish state since July.
Responsibility for the attack in the town of Hadera was claimed by the Islamic Jihad movement, which said it was in retaliation for the recent killing of its military commander for the West Bank.
Israel, which froze contacts with the Palestinian Authority earlier this month after a shooting in the West Bank, said the attack highlights the failure to rein in militants.
”Five Israelis were killed as well as the suicide bomber. Twenty-six others were wounded,” national police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld said.
Other police at the scene said the bomber was a young male, denying earlier comments by Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra who said he had information it was a female bomber.
The blast went off shortly before 4pm local time as shoppers stocked up on provisions on the first working day after the week-long Israeli holiday period.
The blast caused heavy damage to the market stalls lining the wide tree-lined street that runs alongside the town’s market. At least one body could be seen lying amid shattered glass in the road, covered by a dark plastic cover.
The attack came just two days after militants from Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the death of their military leader in the West Bank after he had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers.
All the main Palestinian militant groups were meant to be observing a truce until the end of the year, but Jihad had said that the ”cooldown can go to hell” after Louai Saadi, overall commander of its Al-Quds Brigades military wing in the West Bank, was shot dead on Sunday.
A member of the movement, in a phone call to news agency AFP, said Jihad had carried out the attack in Hadera as an ”initial response” to Saadi’s death.
Jihad has already broken the truce on at least one occasion, including an attack near a shopping mall in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya in July that was said to have been masterminded by Saadi.
Wednesday’s attack was also carried out on the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Jihad leader Fathi Shiqaqi by Israeli agents in Malta.
‘Stop giving Israel excuses’
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a consistent critic of the armed uprising, had earlier called on militant groups such as Jihad and the larger Hamas movement to ”stop giving Israel excuses” to launch attacks on the Palestinian territories.
Chief negotiator Saeb Erakat led the Palestinian condemnation of the attack in Hadera, saying it is counter-productive.
”We condemn this operation and we call on all the Palestinian factions to implement completely the truce,” Erakat said. ”This kind of operation is not in the interests of the Palestinians and violence only begets more violence.”
Ezra said the attack shows the Palestinian Authority is failing to rein in militants.
”To my sadness the Palestinian Authority is not doing a thing to stop terrorists from getting into Israel. ”Following this attack, I call on the Palestinian Authority to do something, to help stop terrorists from getting into Israel, because it will hurt them, it will hurt their economy and their future ability to enter negotiations.”
Israel froze contacts with the Palestinian Authority earlier this month following a shooting attack near a settlement bloc in the West Bank in which three settlers were killed.
The army had earlier reported that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a mortar round on to a football pitch in southern Israel, causing no casualties or damage.
The round, which landed in the playing field in the Negev desert community of Netiv Haasara, came after the Israeli army warned it would operate a zero-tolerance policy towards future Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza. — AFP
