Wave of violence halts peace effort

A US-backed Middle East peace initiative stalled in a wave of violence with three Palestinian suicide bombings in an 11-hour period.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon postponed a trip to Washington for peace talks and instead dealt with Cabinet demands to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Israel put a tight closure on the West Bank late yesterday in response to the attacks, banning all Palestinians from entering Israel, after Mr Sharon called off his trip, just hours before he was due to leave.

The deadliest attack came early yesterday morning, when a suicide bomber blew up a Jerusalem city bus, killing seven passengers. A few minutes later, another suicide bomber set off his explosives outside the city, apparently after failing to penetrate the tight security around Jerusalem.

On Saturday night, just before Mr Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas held the first summit between the two sides in nearly three years, a suicide bomber approached a group of Israelis in the West Bank city of Hebron and detonated his explosives, killing a man and his pregnant wife.

Israeli security sources said all three bombers came from the same Hebron cell of Hamas, the larger of two violent Palestinian Islamic groups responsible for dozens of suicide attacks, killing more than 300 bystanders in 31 months of violence.

Summoning his Cabinet into special session yesterday evening, Mr Sharon faced calls from several Cabinet ministers to expel Mr Arafat. Israel claims that Mr Arafat is implicated in the violence, encouraging militants to attack Israelis.

Calls for Mr Arafat’s deportation routinely follow attacks in Israel, but Mr Sharon has resisted. And yesterday, he again said this was not the time to expel Mr Arafat, his personal enemy for decades.

According to a senior Israeli government official, Mr Sharon said that deporting Mr Arafat would create a worse situation for Israel than the present one, with Mr Arafat travelling from capital to capital stating his case.

Instead, Israel took a much lesser measure, aiming to increase his isolation. The official said foreign diplomats would be told that if they declare their intention to meet Mr Arafat, they will be banned from seeing Israeli officials.

Israel “will continue to fight terror everywhere, at any time and in any way possible”, the Cabinet said in a statement, declaring that Israel must carry out the fight itself because the Palestinian Authority has not done so.

The Abbas government condemned the bombings and said it was serious about stopping such violence.

Israel demands tough measures against the violent groups ahead of any other peace moves, though the “road map” peace plan calls for parallel steps.

In Washington, Mr Sharon was to have discussed his reservations about the plan, a three-year, three-stage blueprint for ending violence and creating a Palestinian state. Mr Sharon’s cancellation put off steps to implement the plan.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced the “horrific terrorist bombing” in Jerusalem: ”We call on the Palestinians to begin to take immediate and decisive action to eradicate the infrastructure of terrorism and violence.”

The bus bomber struck a few minutes before 6am local time (4am UK time) yesterday at the beginning of rush hour. Sunday is a work day in Israel.

The bomber, 19, was disguised as an observant Jew with a skullcap and white prayer shawl.

Just seconds after he boarded the two-sectioned bus, he detonated nail-studded explosives strapped to his body. Metal and fire tore through the driver’s leg, and as he lost control of the vehicle, its back end fishtailed, smashing a bus stop shelter.

The bodies of the dead remained sitting upright in their seats, including that of a woman whose head slumped back and whose legs were still crossed. One man’s body leaned from a broken window.

In other incidents yesterday, two Palestinians, aged 18 and 13, were killed by Israeli army fire in the Gaza Strip, doctors said. The 13-year-old was among several dozen youngsters throwing stones at Israeli troops patrolling a Gaza town they seized last week.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian militiamen dragged a suspected informer into the main square and killed him with several shots to the head as about 200 people watched, witnesses said.

One bystander said the gunmen forced their victim to kneel with his hands tied behind his back, then executed him.