The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, on Thursday promised a wide-ranging retaliation against Palestinian militants following Wednesday’s suicide bombing that killed five people.
The bomber struck near a falafel stand in Hadera, a busy coastal market town, scattering metal shrapnel that shattered windows and destroyed cars.
”Unfortunately the Palestinian Authority has not taken any serious action to battle terrorism,” Sharon said.
”We will not accept under any circumstances a continuation of terrorism. Therefore our activities will be broad and non-stop until they halt terrorism.”
Sharon made the comments at the start of a meeting with the visiting Russian Federation’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.
Early on Thursday, Israeli aircraft launched three strikes on the Gaza Strip in what the army said were attacks aimed at stopping militants firing rockets into the Jewish state from the territory. There were no reports of casualties.
It was the third day of air raids in the worst flare-up of violence since Israel withdrew from Gaza last month. More than 20 people were wounded in Thursday’s militant attack, some seriously.
”One minute I was making sandwiches and the next I was lying on the ground,” said Avi Samneh (17) who was working at the stall when the bomb went off. His clothes were covered in dried blood and his arms wrapped in bandages as he spoke from his hospital bed.
Eidan Akiva told Israeli television he felt the blast in his home. ”Body parts reached all the way until my apartment building… It looks like a war was here,” he said.
The bomber was identified as Hassan Abu Zeid (20) from Qabatiyeh on the West Bank. Israel Radio reported that he was released from an Israeli prison about a month ago.
Islamic Jihad said Zeid carried out the first suicide bombing since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the killing of the organisation’s West Bank military commander, Luay Saadi, on Monday.
”It is a natural retaliation for the Israeli crimes committed against our people, namely the crime against Luay Saadi,” said an Islamic Jihad spokesperson, Khader Habib.
Habib said the organisation remained committed to a nine-month long ceasefire.
”Islamic Jihad is still committed to the truce, but this truce should be mutual. We cannot tolerate a one-sided truce,” he said.
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Wednesday’s bombing. ”It harms Palestinian interests and could widen the cycle of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodshed,” he said.
But Abbas and others have been warning that a month-long campaign of arrests and killings by the Israeli army in the West Bank was likely to lead to just such an attack. The Israeli military has killed 28 Palestinians in assassinations or during arrests since it withdrew from the Gaza Strip. Three unarmed teenagers were also shot while illegally entering Israel from Gaza in search of work.
Israeli forces have arrested about 800 Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists ahead of Palestinian elections. Some of those detained are election candidates.
”This escalation is putting the entire peace process in real jeopardy,” said Abbas.
‘War to the bitter end’
Dozens of Israeli army jeeps and tanks moved into the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday as clashes flared between troops and gunmen, Palestinian security sources said.
Around 40 jeeps and tanks moved into the city to surround houses as shooting rang out across Jenin between Israeli troops and gunmen, and two Israeli Apache helicopters circled in the sky overhead, the security sources said.
Army chief of staff General Dan Halutz was quoted as declaring a ”war to the bitter end” against Islamic Jihad after meeting defence chiefs.
Security sources said Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz gave the green light for the resumption of ‘targeted killing’ operations against the masterminds of attacks and the army announced a general closure on Gaza and the West Bank. – AFP, Guardian Unlimited Â