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Hamas Claims Blast in Gaza Strip, Says More Bombs to Come
GAZA CITY, July 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - After Hamas' armed wing claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the Gaza Strip, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic movement said Monday that more occupation resistance bombers were ready to attack Israeli Occupying Forces.
The driver of the car was killed in the powerful explosion near the Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza, but there were no other casualties.
Israel said it had told the Palestinian Authority that Hamas was planning an attack and accused the PA of failing to take any action to prevent it.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that one of their "martyrs," Nafez Ayesh al-Nadher, 26, had carried out the attack on an Israeli military position and a bus carrying Jewish settlers.
"This operation showed that there is a large number of suicide bombers who are ready to sacrifice themselves to liberate our land from the Israeli occupation," Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters.
"It proves that the Palestinian people are continuing their struggle and will fight to the end against the aggression of the Israeli occupation," he said.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam statement said the operation was "a message to the Zionist terrorists who kill our children and kidnap and liquidate our fighters" that suicide attacks "against the enemy occupier" would continue.
Palestinian police later arrested a suspected accomplice of the bomber -- the first time Yasser Arafat's authority has taken such action in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian uprising erupted more than nine months ago.
"A Palestinian who was driving a car behind the suicide bomber's vehicle used a mobile telephone to detonate the car bomb," a statement sent to AFP said.
"After an inquiry, we arrested him and he is currently being questioned," the statement said.
Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, described the arrest as "unacceptable" and demanded the immediate release of the suspect.
"It is the right of our people to continue the struggle against the occupation and we consider the arrest of any of our fighters is a way of breaking the Intifada and bowing to Zionist aggression," he told reporters.
On Sunday, during the funeral of an 11-year-old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli occupation troops, Hamas occupation resistance activists warned that they would launch suicide attacks to "avenge the blood of the martyrs."
Israeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar said Israel had passed on specific information about the site of an attack and the identity of the bombers to the Palestinian Authority.
"We were informed in advance that Hamas was going to commit a suicide attack and asked the Palestinian Authority to prevent it, but the authority did nothing," he told reporters.
On Sunday, Israeli troops snatched a Hamas activist in broad daylight as he was driving with his wife and three children in Hebron in the West Bank, an area under total Palestinian control, his family said.
Last week, the Israeli security cabinet gave the green light for the resumption of targeted attacks - which include assassinations -- of Palestinians deemed responsible for resistence operations. Israel's continued targeted attacks have been criticized by the international community, including the U.S.
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