A bomb exploded early Monday at the Jewish settlement of Barkan in the northern West Bank, causing no injuries, reported Israel Radio, cited by Haaretz newspaper.
The pipe bomb went off in front of an Israeli car, leaving the driver in a state of shock, a military spokesman told the radio.
The sector was immediately cordoned off by troops.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claimed that Palestinian gunners fired a mortar shell at the Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar Darom.
It also claimed that gunmen fired at an Israeli military vehicle near the West Bank town of Tulkarem.
No injuries were reported in either incident, according to the report.
On Sunday, Israeli forces were surrounding the Palestinian town of Qalqilya, reported Abu Dhabi satellite channel.
The station’s correspondent said that local radios were announcing warnings by the Intifada leadership, urging people not to gather in public areas, and to cooperate with the Palestinian security forces.
Qalqilya is the hometown of Said Hotari, the Hamas suicide bomber who carried out the Tel Aviv bombing on Friday, in which 19 Israelis were killed and some 120 injured.
Meanwhile, Israeli radio warned that strikes had been ordered.
"Our finger is on the trigger to ensure the security of the citizens of Israel," Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer warned.
That was highlighted by an Israeli public radio report, saying the government had ordered strikes against Palestinian extremists responsible for most anti-Israeli bombings in recent years, and that the Palestinian Authority itself might also be targeted.
The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claimed responsibility for the Friday suicide bombing.
The Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades "will continue their martyr (acts) until all our rights are recovered and they announce their determination to avenge all the martyrs and to defend the Al Aqsa mosque and Palestine with their souls," said a statement faxed to AFP.
The report followed meetings chaired by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with his inner security cabinet and the full government to weigh the response to Friday night's attack at a beachside nightclub in Tel Aviv that killed 19 young people plus the bomber.
During the meeting, Sharon labeled Arafat's call merely a "tactic" employed because of international pressure and fears of harsh reprisals, Israeli radio reported.
Indeed, a senior Israeli security official told a briefing for foreign reporters on condition of anonymity that Arafat's call averted a harsh Israeli retaliation.
"We were just about to launch a very severe airstrike," he was quoted as saying by AFP, warning however: "But I am sure you will see it will happen, unfortunately, whenever the chairman will decide to go back to terrorism and not to keep the ceasefire."
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was encouraged at Sharon's measured response despite pressure to retaliate.
"I am glad that so far he is pacing the response and he is giving the other side, the Palestinian side, time to act on what they said they were going to do...I would encourage him to keep having this measured response," Powell said on NBC's Meet the Press.
Powell, who spoke to both Sharon and the Palestinian leader after the Tel Aviv attack, said his message to Arafat was: "This is the time to bring the violence under control."
The United States is leading an international campaign to try to break the cycle of violence that has claimed almost 600 lives since late September, the vast majority of them Palestinians.
But Palestinians and Arab parties accuse the superpower of taking the Israeli side, by ignoring the fact that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands and launching aggression against the residents of the Occupied Territories.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Arafat held talks with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to discuss the "details of the implementation of the ceasefire."
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also appealed on Voice of Palestine radio for US Middle East envoy William Burns to resume efforts to implement the recommendations made by a committee led by former US senator George Mitchell.
And Moscow also sought to step up its role, with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov making calls to Powell, Arafat and Peres, condemning "criminal acts of terrorism" while calling on Israel to show patience, said the agency.
For their part, a coalition of 13 Palestinian movements, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said Sunday they intended to continue the Intifada, after a meeting to discuss Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's ceasefire order, reported AFP.
The various groups, which also included the Fateh faction, stressed in a joint statement "the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves against aggression, occupation and colonization and continue the Intifada, one of their legitimate rights."
They called on the Palestinians to "continue popular demonstrations to underline the continuation of the Intifada,” the revolt against Israeli occupation now in its ninth month, said the statement, cited by AFP.
The coalition, known as the Islamic and Nationalist Forces, had met to debate Arafat's ceasefire order.
Arafat issued instructions late Saturday to his security forces to ensure implementation of a "total and immediate ceasefire" on Israeli targets and called for contacts among the factions.
The order followed the Tel Aviv blast which killed 19 Israelis as well as the bomber who had joined a line of teenagers outside a beachfront nightclub.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The Friday suicide bombing would raise that toll by 19.
Israel's army has reported over 600 Israeli wounded.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians injured in Israeli attacks.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” - Albawaba.com
– Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
