Teenage suicide bomber kills three

A PALESTINIAN teenager with 11 pounds of explosives strapped to his body blew himself up in a crowded Tel Aviv outdoor market yesterday, killing three Israelis and wounding 32 in the first such attack since Yasser Arafat left the region for medical treatment last week.

The blast came at a time of growing concern about instability during Mr Arafat’s absence. Militants appeared to be trying to signal they are in charge, not Arafat’s stand-ins who have been trying to convey a sense of normalcy.

Israel has said while the Palestinian leader is away, it would show restraint in its battle with militants.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel “will not stop its war against terrorism,” and he reiterated his commitment to his plan to unilaterally disengage from the Palestinians.

“I’m not changing my policy until there are changes in the Palestinian administration and until it stops its incitement and its terror,” Mr Sharon said.

From his sick bed in France, Mr Arafat condemned the bombing “and the killing of civilians on both sides,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas also criticised the attack.

“We don’t believe that such an action serves our national cause, so we call on everyone to stop targeting civilians,” he said.

The ground shook in the Carmel Market as the explosion ripped through a dairy store and damaged a neighbouring vegetable stall.

The force of the blast blew the store’s sign away, leaving loose wire dangling out of the wall. Lettuce and parsley were strewn on the pavement.

Paramedics treated dazed shoppers and wheeled away two bodies in black plastic bags. Rescue workers scoured the pavement and dug through piles of cheese and spices inside the store in search of body parts.

Packages of coloured children’s socks lay on the ground.

“I saw lots of people lying on the ground, lots of people wounded,” shopper Michal Weizman said.

“There was a woman whose entire body was torn up, all her body was torn up.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction, claimed responsibility, identifying the bomber as Eli Amer Alfar, from the Askar refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus.

Alfar’s identity card showed he was aged 16, making him one of the youngest Palestinian suicide bombers in the conflict.