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Israel: Bombing In Netanya
JERUSALEM, May 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories continued Friday as a
20-year-old Palestinian, Mahmoud Ahmed Marmash from Tulkarem, killed himself and six Israelis, and injured 100 others, several of them seriously, by exploding a bomb at a shopping center in the Israeli coastal resort of Netanya, Israeli police said Friday.
The six victims comprise four women, three of whom died instantly, and another who succumbed to her injuries in hospital, and two men, a police spokesman said.
"The bomber detonated the bomb in sight of the guards at the entrance of the Sharon shopping center," a policeman told reporters.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, announcing it over loudspeakers after Friday prayers in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The group said the bombing was number seven of 10 promised suicide attacks and was conducted in retaliation for the unprovoked killing of five Palestinian policemen in the West Bank on Monday.
Hamas, which is violently opposed to the peace process with Israel, has claimed several bombings and mortar attacks on Israeli targets during the almost eight-month-old Intifada, or uprising.
For its part, the Palestinian Authority said it condemns "the murder of innocent Palestinian or Israeli civilians", Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's secretary general, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, said in reaction to the attack.
This is the third attack carried in Netanya since the beginning of the Intifada against Israel last September.
In the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians braced for an Israeli attack as Hamas leaders told a rally here that the bombing in Netanya marked the start of a war against Israel.
"This is the beginning of a war. This bombing is not the first one and will not be the last," a Hamas leader told thousands of people marching through the refugee camp in a sea of green Hamas flags.
"We will fight the Israelis," the Hamas leader said over a loudspeaker as Palestinian cameramen filmed the event on a stand mounted atop a tractor. "There cannot be victory without martyrdom. You have to fight your enemy."
The Hamas leader, whose name could not be obtained amid the commotion of the rally, told supporters the current war resembled that of Khaybar, a 629 AD battle where Muslims led by the Prophet Mohammed (SAW) defeated Jews on the Arabian peninsula.
"The army of the Prophet Mohammed is coming back," he warned the Jewish state.
Many marchers carried the green flag, stamped with Qur'anic verse "We have only one God and one prophet, Mohammed." Banners serving as a backdrop at a rally stand depicted Hamas members firing mortars or anti-tank grenades and Israeli buses blowing up.
People at the rally applauded the Netanya bombing saying it was just one way to retaliate for Israel's attacks on Palestinians and for its occupation of Palestinian land.
"We need to kill them," an old woman said when asked about the Netanya bombing.
Marwan Abu Anas, a bearded man with long robes who said he was a Hamas member like everyone at the rally, described the bombing in Netanya as an appropriate response against Israel.
"They started the war against us [in 1948] and they are continuing it until now," he said.
Asked if he feared Israel's response, he replied: "I'm not afraid of Israel. I'm only afraid of God."
Hamas was seen bringing supporters to the rally in more than a dozen buses, but three buses were seen leaving empty from a location at Deir Balah, a neighboring refugee camp.
Children there explained that they feared the Israelis would retaliate at the Hamas rally. "We're afraid," they shouted in unison.
Rabiyah al-Hawaji, a 28-year-old who lives in Deir Balah, said there was little doubt Israel would strike heavily in retaliation for the Netanya bombing.
"Certainly. I'm sure they're going to react in an aggressive way," he said. "Even without the Palestinians doing anything, they are shelling us and bombarding us."
In response to the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began talks with his security chiefs to study possible responses to the attack.
At the same time, a senior Palestinian security official, Saeb al-Ajezz, said that two Israeli missiles exploded in the Mediterranean Sea close to where Arafat's offices are located in Gaza City.
Al-Ajezz said the missiles landed in the sea 200 meters (660 feet) from the shore, adding there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Some Palestinian security sources suspected the missiles were a warning of more to come.
In addition, Palestinians fired a mortar bomb into the southern Gaza Strip Jewish settlement of Gadid early on Friday, which fell among the greenhouses of the settlement, but without causing casualties or damage, an Israeli military source said.
On Thursday, Arafat accused Israel of intensifying military operations against the Palestinians and described these actions as part of a plan to force the Palestinians to "kneel down", he was quoted as saying when being asked about recent Israeli military actions upon his return to Gaza from Tunisia.
"This is something we were expecting," he told reporters. The Israelis "had a plan and every one of them was talking about it, and they want to escalate this plan." They "thought they could make the Palestinian people kneel down, but they forgot that we are a courageous people. We cannot give up, and we will not kneel down, and we will not surrender," he said, news agencies reported.
At the same time, an advisor to Arafat, Bassam Abu Sharif, said the United States would start a push for peace with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's tour of Europe and Africa, beginning on May 22nd. During that tour, he will meet with Arafat.
He said that no exact date has been set for the meeting, but other Palestinian Authority sources said Arafat and Powell are likely to meet on May 23rd in Paris.
"The Americans basically listened to the Palestinian view of the crisis, and how to solve it," the source said when describing a meeting between Arafat's deputy and Powell in Washington.
Abu Sharif also challenged Sharon to sit down with the Palestinians and discuss his ideas of bringing peace to the area. He said if Sharon agreed on a ceasefire, the Palestinian Authority will make sure that no single shot would be fired from the their side.
On the other hand, a newspaper reported on Friday that Israel's cabinet will meet next week to discuss reshuffling the budget to free more than one billion dollars to help in financing increased defense expenses brought on by escalating violence in the region, news agencies reported.
"The cabinet will hold a special session next week to discuss cutting four to five billion shekels from the 2001 budget in order to finance the additional defense expenditures necessitated by the Intifada," Haaretz said.
Israel's parliament passed a $60 billion budget on March 28th.
Moreover, BBC reports that Israel said it is preparing to cease the expansion of Jewish Settlements in the Palestinian territories.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel would stop any further grasping of land around the settlements and would adopt a stricter policy on new building within their existing boundaries, but officials said they would allow settlements to grow internally.
"We are suspected of wanting to grab these lands for our settlements, although this is not our intention," Peres told Israeli television.
However, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat dismissed the offer, telling the BBC the Israeli move was just a "game of deceit".
Elsewhere, one Jewish settler was shot dead and two others injured, one seriously, when the car they were traveling in came under Palestinian fire Friday near the West Bank town of Ramallah, settler sources said.
The attack took place on a road close to the Neve Tsuf settlement, north of the autonomous Palestinian town of Ramallah, the sources said.
The victim was a soldier from one of the founding families of the settlement, the sources said.
One of the two wounded was the victim's mother, whose condition was described as very serious, they added.
It was not immediately clear if the gunmen were also in a car or had positioned themselves along the road.
The attack came just hours after the Netanya bombing.
These latest deaths take to 545 the number of people killed since the start last September of the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, the majority of them Palestinian.
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