Washington’s push to bring "calm" to the Mideast in the midst of the latest Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation took a body blow Saturday, when two suicide bombers detonated nail-studded explosives in an occupied Jerusalem mall, killing themselves and six bystanders and wounding 150 people, said reports.
The bombing was ``one of the worst (attacks) we have ever seen,'' AP quoted Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres as saying.
Hospital officials told CNN that the wounded were pouring into the city's three major health facilities.
The attack brought the Israeli death toll in the 14-month uprising to nearly 200, and pushed the number of wounded to around 2,150. Palestinians, meanwhile, have seen over 730 of their people killed, and between 8,500 and 10,000 wounded, according to a tally by the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz newspaper.
Minutes after the back-to-back explosions, reported AP, another bomb exploded in a car parked nearby, sending panicked pedestrians fleeing in all directions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups have threatened to carry out attacks in Israel to avenge the killing of Hamas' military leader in the West Bank in an Israeli missile attack last week, said the news agency. Palestinians are also still outraged by the killing last week of five schoolboys by a bomb planted by Israeli soldiers.
Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, did not claim responsibility on behalf of the group, but said Hamas would continue carrying out attacks, according to AP.
``We have said several times that we are not going to accept the occupation to remain in our land,'' Rantisi said. ``We are fighting Jewish terrorism, we are fighting the killers and defending our freedom, our stability and our dignity.''
Israel has since 1967 occupied huge swathes of land seized from Palestinian owners, and the UK-based magazine The Economist has accused Tel Aviv of “flouting” the 1993 Oslo peace accords by flooding the occupied land with settlers.
Meanwhile, a statement from the Palestinian Authority condemned the terror attacks, expressing its ``deep anger ... and pain'' and accusing those behind it of trying to derail a US peace initiative.
The attacks came as a senior US envoy, retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, was in Israel to try to secure a ceasefire, which despite numerous agreements have failed to take hold. Palestinian leaders have repeatedly sought international monitors for such truces, only to see their efforts blocked in the UN by Israel’s US backers.
This, combined with the billions in military aid the US provides to Tel Aviv, have made many Palestinians wary of Washington’s efforts to present itself as an “impartial broker” of peace talks. Israelis, meanwhile, are suspicious of US criticism of their settlements on conquered Palestinian land, and believe Washington’s latest peace push stems from a desire to rally Arab support for the global war on terror.
FIGHTING, INFIGHTING MARKS CONTINUED UPRISING
Prior to the suicide bombings in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli troops killed two Palestinian youths during an incursion into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, reports said. Meanwhile, an armed clash was reported between the Islamic Jihad group and Palestinian police in Gaza.
Palestinian medics and family members were quoted by the Haaretz daily as saying that Mohammed Salah, 12, was shot dead when he and other schoolboys threw stones at an Israeli tank stationed near the village of Wad Burqin, close to Jenin.
At the southern entrance to the Jenin, troops opened fire and killed Rami As'oos, 18, when he tried to pass the road blocked by an armored vehicle, witnesses said. The occupation army said it was checking both incidents, according to the Tel Aviv-based newspaper.
Meanwhile, Palestinian police failed for the second time in a month to arrest a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad group, Mohammed Al Hindi, and sparked a gunbattle with his bodyguards, said Hindi and an AFP correspondent at the scene.
"Yes, Palestinian police tried to arrest me at my home. They surrounded my house when I was inside. But my supporters came to protest and then there was some shooting," Hindi told AFP.
"There was no reason" for his arrest, he added.
More than 100 armed Palestinian police and security men encircled the streets around the house of Hindi in Gaza City, but were forced back during a firefight with his bodyguards.
Israeli army analysts have said that the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip, strangled by many months of Israeli economic blockades, is in danger of collapsing in the face of a huge popular uprising fueled by desperation – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
