Woman killed in farm blast

A 55-YEAR-OLD Palestinian woman was killed yesterday and her son injured in an explosion at the West Bank farm of a fugitive Islamic militant.

Palestinian security officials said a bomb was planted on Islamic Jihad member Ahmed Yassin’s chicken farm in Saida village.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops arrested a regional Hamas leader in the nearby town of Qalqiliya.

Also yesterday, the Palestinian security chief, Abdel Razek Yehiyeh, was in Gaza for a renewed attempt at persuading Hamas and Islamic Jihad to halt attacks in Israel. Twelve Palestinian factions, including the Islamic groups, were due to resume talks later today on forming a joint political platform.

Discussions broke down earlier this month after Hamas and Islamic Jihad vetoed clauses calling for an end to attacks on Israelis and implying recognition of Israel.

In the northern West Bank, Israeli troops arrested the Hamas leader in Qalqiliya, Mohammed Wajeh Quoa, 41, Palestinian officials said.

Quoa had been arrested repeatedly by Israel in the past and in 1992 was deported to south Lebanon for one year, along with 400 other Islamic militants.

The arrest came a day after Israeli security officials announced the capture of a five-member Hamas cell, including four Arab residents of Jerusalem. The cell members are suspected of detonating a series of bombs, including the July 31 blast in the cafe at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Nine people were killed in the explosion, including five Americans.

Security officials said the bomb was planted by Mohammed Oudeh, a university handyman who used his entry permit to walk into the campus. Oudeh planted the explosives in the cafe, walked away and set them off with a mobile phone, security officials said

Oudeh’s cell is also blamed for suicide bombings in a Jerusalem cafe and a pool hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Letzion that killed 26 people.

The arrests of the four east Jerusalem residents took many Israelis by surprise, because Palestinians living in the city had been relatively inactive in the past two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. About 200,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem.

The city’s mayor, Ehud Olmert, said “the vast majority” of Jerusalem’s Arabs are peaceful.

Asked about measures to prevent further acts of terror, he said: “One thing is certain. There will be no wall down the middle of Jerusalem.”

However, Gideon Ezra, an MP from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud party, said Jerusalem Arabs involved in terror should be punished harshly: “Cancel their social security payments, destroy their houses.”