Suicide bomber kills one in Israel

At least one person was killed today and six others injured, one critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the southern Israeli town which houses the country’s nuclear reactor, authorities said.

Police said they killed a second attacker before he had a chance to detonate his explosives belt.

It was the first suicide blast in Israel in a year, and officials were investigating whether the attacker came in through Egypt after Palestinian militants breached the Gaza-Egypt border last month.

Government officials dismissed claims that the heavily guarded Dimona nuclear reactor was the target of the attackers. The explosion took place in an industrial area about six miles (10km) from the reactor site.

“We heard a large explosion and people started to run. I saw pieces of flesh flying in the air,” a witness identified only by her first name, Revital, told Army Radio.

Police said there were two attackers, although only one managed to detonate his explosives belt. They said the second attacker was shot dead before he could detonate himself. A police bomb squad was on the scene defusing the explosives.

“The terror organisations have showed again who they are and what they are,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel. “Their goal was and continues to be to kill Israeli citizens in their homes and their schools and in their shopping centres.”

“Israel will continue to fight against this murderous terror as it is its duty and responsibility to secure the safety and security of Israel,” he added.

At a Cabinet meeting yesterday, the heads of security services warned that because of the anarchy on the Gaza-Egypt frontier, Palestinian militants might enter Israel through Gaza’s Sinai desert to attack a civilian Israeli target, a government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the Cabinet meeting was closed.

Southern Israel has been on alert against militant attacks since the Gaza Strip’s Islamic Hamas rulers breached the border with Egypt on January 23. Egypt managed to reseal the border only yesterday.

The breach made Israel’s Negev desert, where Dimona is located, more vulnerable to penetration by Palestinian militants who could enter through Egypt’s porous border. Dimona is about 40 miles (60km) north east of Egypt.

Last week, Israel closed a number of popular hiking areas in the south for fear of militant attacks.

Hamas has carried out dozens of suicide bombings. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for today’s attack.

In the southern Gaza town of Rafah, gunmen fired their weapons into the air to celebrate the attack.

Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said he did not know whether his group was involved, but praised the attack. He also rejected suggestions that the bombing would hurt Hamas’s chances of reopening the border with Egypt.

“The suicide bombings were there before the closures and the resistance used every opportunity to make these glorious acts,” he said. “They show the Palestinians can respond to the enemy and their crimes.”

The last suicide bombing in Israel was on January 29, 2007, when a Palestinian attacker killed three Israelis at a bakery in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. That suicide bomber entered Israel via Egypt.

Before that blast, there had been no suicide bombings in Israel for nine months.

After the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in 2000, Palestinian militants carried out dozens of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of people.

Last November, peace negotiations were resumed between Israel and the moderate, West-Bank-based government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, though Israel says it continues to foil repeated attempted attacks by militants.

Mahmoud Habbash, a minister in Abbas’ government, condemned the attack, but blamed Israel for creating an atmosphere of violence by it.

“We are against anything that would take us back to a cycle of violence,” he said. “We carry Israel responsibility for this escalation, and for what happened.”

Dimona is home to Israel’s nuclear research centre, and it is widely believed that atomic weapons were developed at the plant. Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear arms, following a policy of ambiguity designed to keep its neighbours unsure of its military capability.

Much of the evidence that it has nuclear weapons is based on details and pictures leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who worked at the Dimona reactor.