Suicide bomb attack deals blow to Cabinent deal
The train station attack dealt a blow to an agreement on Wednesday between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and incoming prime minister Mahmoud Abbas for creation of a reformist Cabinet that paved the way for a new US peace drive.
An armed faction of Arafat’s Fatah movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility, calling it a “strike against the enemies of God and humanity” and threatening further attacks.
Hours later, Israeli soldiers killed a 17-year-old student and a 22-year-old labourer and wounded two other students during a stone-throwing protest in a West Bank village near Ramallah, Palestinian sources said.
An Israeli military source said troops fired because they felt “their lives were in danger.”
Most militant factions have denounced the new Cabinet, which was formed under intense international pressure on Palestinians to purge corruption and end attacks on Israelis.
The bombing, the first of its kind in Israel in nearly a month, underlined the difficulties Abbas will face in reining in militants leading a 30-month uprising for independence.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: “We condemn any attack on civilians, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli.”
The train station explosion shattered plate-glass doors and left chunks of flesh littered across the steps at the entrance to the station in the central Israeli town of Kfar Saba.
Guards stopped the bomber as he tried to enter the station, preventing him from reaching a crowded platform. One guard who blocked the man’s path was killed along with the bomber in a blast that sprayed the area with blood and body parts.
Rotem Alfi, 22, an off-duty guard, said he saw a young man of “Middle Eastern appearance” wearing sunglasses and a long coat walk up to the security checkpoint and reach his hand into his pocket as if to pull out an identity card.
“He must have detonated the bomb from his pocket,” Mr Alfi said. Israeli security sources identified the bomber as Ahmed al-Khatib, 18, from the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.
“The first item of business of the new Palestinian government should be to stop terror,” said David Baker, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office.
