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Israel Arrests Six PFLP Members After Jerusalem Bombing
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Sept 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Six members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were arrested by Israeli occupation police forces on suspicion of involvement in two Jerusalem bomb attacks, Israel's police said Tuesday.
Among the charges held against them, they are suspected of being responsible for the explosion in a bus last July by a bomb hidden in a watermelon, and for a car bomb blast in central Jerusalem in August, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday.
Neither of the blasts caused any injuries.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon issued a statement Tuesday, giving the names of the six PFLP activists and a list of the attacks they had planned.
The six Palestinians arrested in two separate round-ups on August 8th and 21st are Samir Ghazi Esa Metaab, 24, Bilal Mohammad Mahmud Udah, 23, Aziz Ibrahim Yehia Dandis, 19, Anan Abdelatif Shehadah, 19, Ihab Mohammad Wajih al-Wari, 19 and Firaz Marwan Yusef Aweidah, 20.
The PFLP claimed responsibility for two bomb blasts Monday in Jewish settler districts of occupied east Jerusalem, injuring three Israelis.
Public radio said the claims were in leaflets distributed in the West Bank signed by the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, which also threatened more attacks to come.
PFLP chief Mustafa was the most senior Palestinian leader to be killed yet in Israel's policy of assassination targeting Palestinian resistance leaders, when helicopter gunships fired a missile through the window of his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah on August 27th.
The Damascus-based PFLP is one of the three main political components of the Palestine Liberation Organization, together with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah.
The six arrests came after fourteen people were injured, one seriously, early Tuesday when a Palestinian blew himself up in the center of Jerusalem, Israeli police announced.
The blast occurred on Ha Nevehim Street in occupied west Jerusalem.
Israeli police sealed off the area, an AFP correspondent on the scene said, adding that the remains of the Palestinian still lay scattered on the road.
Wounded passers-by were taken to Bikur Holim hospital, just 50 yards away, Israeli radio said.
Arafat expressed sorrow over the incident and the continuing violence in the region.
"I am greatly saddened because of the injuries and casualties in Jerusalem. I feel the same way when civilians are injured, whether they are Israelis or Palestinians," he said Tuesday after meeting with the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Gaza City.
Arafat thanked Solana for his "efforts to maintain the dialogue particularly, the planned meeting with [Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon] Peres," and for European mediation which led to a ceasefire deal after which Israeli troops withdrew from the Palestinian village of Beit Jala August 30th.
Solana arrived in the region Sunday night for a tour aimed at "consolidating the ceasefire and resuming dialogue" between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as preparing a proposed Arafat-Peres meeting.
Israelis booed Solana as he visited the scene of today's attack in Jerusalem.
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israel should be held responsible for Tuesday's bombing.
"It is the Israeli government which is responsible for all attacks wherever they happen, whether the victims are Palestinians or Israelis," he said.
Israel "is the only side that should be held responsible for that because of its continued policy of aggression," Abed Rabbo said.
Israel blamed Tuesday's bombing on Arafat's Palestinian Authority, claiming it was a consequence of the "incitement to hatred" against Israel by Arab and Muslim countries at the U.N. racism conference in Durban, South Africa, Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon told AFP.
The bomber's death brings to 766 the number of people killed since the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, started on September 28th last year, including 588 Palestinians, most of them children and teenagers, and 156 Israelis.
Meanwhile, Russia urged a halt to Middle East violence Tuesday and called on Sharon, who was visiting Moscow, to resume dialogue with the Palestinians.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told Sharon that Moscow wanted to see the internationally approved Mitchell peace plan implemented along with a suspension of hostilities between the warring sides.
Russia, as a co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process, wants to see "a halt to violence and the resumption of dialogue on the basis of existing proposals to find a way out of the present situation," Ivanov was quoted as saying by the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency.
Moscow supports the Mitchell plan, drafted by a committee led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, which recommends a six-week cooling-off period, followed by confidence-building measures, a freeze on developing Jewish settlements and, ultimately, a return to political negotiations.
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