OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, September 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - General Avi
Dichter, head of the Israeli Security, Shin Bet, said that Jewish
extremists were responsible for planting the bomb which exploded
Tuesday, September 17, in a West Bank school, injuring six Palestinian
children.
The
Qatari News Agency quoted the Israeli Radio saying that Dichter said in
a speech at the Israeli Ministerial Council that Jewish members placed
the time bombs near the water pipes which the students use to drink
water during their recess and said that by doing that they aimed to
cause the most number of casualties.
Khalil
Al-Tamizi, the head of the education zone in Al-Khalil (Hebron), accused
the settlers and the Israeli occupation army of being behind the blast.
He
added that the location in which the school lies has witnessed military
presence on Monday, September 16, and there were many bombs fired in the
skies, which means that the only people who are able to walk around
freely in the city are the settlers and the Israeli soldiers.
On
Tuesday, hours after Israeli tanks raided Gaza Strip, five Palestinian
children were hurt in a bomb attack on their West Bank school.
In
the village of Ziff near Al-Khalil in the southern West Bank, a bomb
went off in the toilets of a Palestinian school, wounding the children,
witnesses and security officials said.
A
second bomb was found in the school and was neutralized by army sappers.
The school is in an area under Israeli security control, but
administered by the Palestinian Authority.
No
group claimed responsibility and no arrests were made, but Israeli
public radio said the army suspected right-wingers from nearby Jewish
settlements of having planted the explosives.
The
school headmaster and Israeli military sources have suggested that the
bombs were planted by Israeli militants, BBC News Online reported.
“We
are checking to see... whether a Palestinian source, a criminal source
or a Jewish source [was responsible],” police spokesman Gil Kleiman
said, BBC reported, adding that in March, a Jewish vigilante group
claimed responsibility for a bomb explosion at a Palestinian school near
Jerusalem which injured five people.
After
Tuesday’s blast, the YESHA Council of Jewish Settlements in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip issued a statement condemning the planting of bombs
in Palestinian schools, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported.
The
first blast took place while the school - located at the Ziff Junction,
south of Al-Khalil - was in session, witnesses said.
