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Three Israelis Killed And Four Palestinians Attacked In New Eruption Of Violence
Additional Reporting by Mohammed Saleh
JERUSALEM, March 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Less than two days after Israel announced it was taking unprecedented security measures against Palestinians, four Israelis were killed and 45 injured after a bomb exploded in the coastal town of Netanya on Sunday.
The powerful blast, which threw bodies and smashed windows in a busy downtown area, triggered a furious reaction from local residents, who attacked a Palestinian laborer with iron bars, critically injuring him. He was set upon by a crowd of Israelis as he worked in a nearby market and was taken to a hospital in serious condition.
"I saw a 60-year-old woman put her heel in his eye," said an Israeli man who declined to be identified. "Every Arab who enters the shouk [market] will be slaughtered."
In a separate incident, an Israeli in a Jerusalem supermarket wounded three Palestinians in a knife attack, several hours after the deadly Netanya bomb blast in the northern Israeli town.
Eyewitnesses said the explosion took place in a crowded commercial area near a central bus station. The Israeli army radio said the Palestinian, who is believed to have carried out the attack, wanted to explode a bomb near a gas station but extensive police presence made him change his mind.
One Arab man was admitted to hospital later in Netanya with serious head injuries that had not been sustained in the blast, Israel Radio reported. Reports from the town said angry Israelis were attacking Arabs in the area and police were trying to evacuate them.
Israeli security forces have recently said they were embarking on an unparalleled number of security measures after the occupation resistance movement Hamas said it would retaliate against a recent wave of Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians protesting Israeli violation of holy Muslim sites.
The casualty toll from the Palestinian Intifada climbed again over the past three days, with six more Palestinian deaths, as the future government of an Israeli national unity continued to take shape with the appointment of a hawkish defense minister and the first Arab to serve in an Israeli cabinet.
The four Palestinian deaths included two children and a mentally ill vagrant, killed by Israeli gunfire. Three of those who died were shot on Friday, while the fourth victim succumbed to wounds suffered earlier in the week. Two Palestinians died Saturday.
No organization has admitted responsibility for the attack in Netanya, although suspicion is falling on Hamas following their recent threats.
Hamas had said that it would carry out military operations against Israeli occupation once Prime Minister-Elect Ariel Sharon took office this month to prove that "fear of the butcher [as Sharon is known for the Arabs] was unjustified."
"Up to this moment, we don't know which party committed this operation," said Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahhar, adding "resistance will continue until we push the occupiers out of our land". Hamas was responsible for a previous attack in Netanya on New Year's Day, which injured approximately 20 people.
Israeli police responded to the latest threat by reinforcing patrols in the West Bank and around public buildings.
Last Thursday, one Israeli was killed and nine wounded when a Palestinian set off a bomb inside a taxi in northern Israel.
Sharon condemned the explosion as a "vile attack." The Netanya attack was the fourth in Israel since Sharon's election as prime minister February 6th, although he has yet to form a government and his Likud party was continuing negotiations with right wing and religious parties Sunday.
"This vile attack illustrates the need for us to be united and undivided. We face an uneasy period that demonstrates the importance of a national unity government," he said, according to a spokesman. "When Sharon is head of the government, he will find the ways and means to restore security for the citizens of Israel," the spokesman said.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh vowed that Israel would strike those behind such attacks, and held Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority responsible for releasing what he called "terrorists," a term Israel often uses for occupation resistance operations.
"We are going to strike those behind these attacks as we have done in recent months," Sneh told Israel's Channel Two television following the explosion in the heart of Netanya.
"We know those who are responsible for this type of terrorist activity," he said. "[The Palestinian Authority] is responsible because it has freed terrorists."
The Palestinian Authority rejected the Israeli allegations that it was responsible because it has released members of Hamas, which praised the attack without claiming responsibility and said it had more than 10 volunteers waiting to strike Israel.
Speaking on the possibility of further attacks under a Shaorn government Hamas spokesman Abdelaziz al-Rantissi, said "Sharon or no Sharon, Barak or no Barak - as long as our land is occupied, and as long as the occupiers are carrying out terrorist operations against us, then we should continue resisting."
A fact-finding commission into the violence, led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, is expected to return to the region later this month if Sharon forms a government, according to Israel.
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