Teen boy behind fatal Tel Aviv bombing

A Palestinian teenager with 11 pounds of explosives strapped to his body blew himself up in a crowded Tel Aviv outdoor market today, 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 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 normality.

Israel has said that 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,” Sharon said.

From his sick bed in France, 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.

It was 116th suicide bombing since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000. In all, 493 Israelis have been killed in such attacks. The last suicide bombing, in September, killed two Israeli policemen in Jerusalem.

Soon after the attack, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in Askar who was throwing stones at an Israeli patrol, local doctors said. The army had no immediate comment.

The Tel Aviv attack came as Israelis and Palestinians were contemplating the repercussions of Arafat’s departure for medical treatment in France.

The Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee in Israel’s parliament dedicated its weekly session to Arafat’s condition. A military intelligence official told the closed-door session he believed Arafat either has cancer or a severe viral infection.

On Sunday, military intelligence chief Aharon Zeevi-Farkash raised eyebrows when he told the weekly Cabinet meeting that Arafat’s “situation is between full recovery and death.”

Ministers complained that they didn’t need an intelligence chief for such a vague assessment, and complained that Israel’s vaunted intelligence services were taken by surprise by Arafat’s sudden health crisis last week.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia convened his Cabinet and the National Security Council. Palestinian officials have been meeting daily since Arafat’s departure on Friday, but emphasise that he remains in control, despite his absence.

Arafat is undergoing a further day of emergency treatment at a French military hospital specialising in blood disorders, but the cause of his illness remained unexplained.

Palestinian officials say their leader’s condition has improved markedly, and that he does not suffer from leukaemia or cancer. But that has not been publicly confirmed by French physicians involved in his treatment.

Sharon told his Cabinet on Sunday that he would not allow Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem, but reiterated that he would be allowed back if he recovers. Sharon also refused to renege on his government’s promise to let Arafat return.

Arafat has said he wants to be buried in Jerusalem, at hotly disputed the holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.