Latest attacks may hold up plans to ease sanctions
Friday, August 2, 2002 | byNAOMI SEGAL Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Israeli officials vowed a "harsh" response for Wednesday's bombing in a crowded cafeteria at Hebrew University's Mt. Scopus campus, which killed at least seven people and wounded more than 80.
Several of the injured were in critical condition, and medical officials warned that the death toll could increase. At least three of the dead were identified as Americans.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying it was avenging last week's killing of its leader, Salah Shehada, in the Gaza Strip.
The bombing in the cafeteria of the Frank Sinatra student union building came as students were taking exams.
Though classes were not in session, the cafeteria was filled with students and staff. A group of foreign students planning to study at the university had arrived on Tuesday.
President Bush condemned the attack.
"There are clearly killers who hate the thought of peace and, therefore, are willing to take their hatred to all kinds of places, including a university," Bush said Wednesday. The United States "condemns that kind of killing, and we send our deepest sympathy to the students and their families."
Wednesday's attack came a day after a suicide bomber struck in Jerusalem, wounding seven people. That attack came on the heels of two terrorist incidents in the West Bank, in which two Israelis were killed and two wounded.
"I think it's tragic and most regrettable that at a time when we are trying to ease restrictions" the response of "the Palestinian Authority is more terrorist activity," Ra'anan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told Associated Press.
Sharon ordered a series of steps this week to ease restrictions on Palestinians, even as Israel braced for retaliatory attacks following Shehada's assassination.
Israeli commentators pointed out that with Israel's army already carrying out a massive anti-terror campaign in the West Bank—and with the imminent launch of a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip unlikely—Israeli officials probably would respond to the attack by backing off from plans to ease sanctions on Palestinian civilians. Despite current conditions, Israel released some $15 million to the Palestinian Authority as a goodwill gesture and a means of improving conditions for the Palestinian population.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer also said he hoped to hold security talks with senior Palestinian officials.
According to Army Radio, Ben-Eliezer has drawn up a proposal aimed at gradually granting the Palestinians security control in areas that remain terror-free.
As part of the promised measures, Israel on Monday lifted curfews on several West Bank cities and transferred some $15 million in frozen tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority. On Wednesday, Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salam Fayed confirmed that the money had been deposited in the Palestinian Authority's account at the Bank of Israel.
Gissin said Israel doesn't want the money "to go to any of the Palestinian institutions where the money either goes into their pockets" or goes to "finance organizations that carry out terrorist attacks against us."
Facing severe international criticism for Shehada's assassination—in a bombing raid that also killed at least 14 Palestinian civilians—Sharon waived his condition that a monitoring system with U.S. participation be installed to ensure that released funds are used correctly.
The move came after the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, warned that the plight of Palestinian civilians was becoming catastrophic. After the Gaza debacle, it seemed, Israel could ill afford international condemnation for reports showing, for example, a rise in malnutrition among the Palestinian population.
Yet the move also comes amid revelations, contained in official Palestinian documents seized during an Israeli invasion this spring, of the elaborate mechanisms that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and other officials used to divert money from the Palestinian Authority budget to terrorist groups leading the attack on Israel.
According to an Israeli government statement, Sharon also approved partially lifting roadblocks, expanding fishing zones in the Gaza Strip, improving passage of Palestinian public transportation and granting 12,000 Palestinians work permits in Israel.
The statement said Sharon had appointed Foreign Minister Shimon Peres as the "minister responsible for coordinating all activities to assist the civilian population in the Palestinian Authority."
But even as these steps were being planned, the pace of violence was intensifying.
Tuesday's attack in Jerusalem took place around 1 p.m., when the bomber entered the Yemenite Falafel Stand on a busy downtown street and blew himself up, apparently prematurely, Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy said.
The bomber was identified as a 17-year-old from Bethlehem. The Al Aksa Brigade, the military wing of Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The group also claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, in which two Israeli brothers, Shlomo Odesser, 60, and Mordechai, 52, were killed when they entered a Palestinian village near Nablus to sell diesel fuel, according to Israel Radio.
In another attack, an Israeli husband and wife were wounded when a Palestinian infiltrated their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar at around 3 a.m. Monday and stabbed them in their bedroom.
The couple awoke and fought off the assailant. The husband sustained moderate injuries and the wife was lightly hurt. Security forces arrived at the house and killed the attacker.
The attack was the third infiltration of Itamar in recent months. In June, a mother, three of her children and a member of the settlement's security response team were killed in an infiltration. In an earlier attack in May, three students at the settlement's yeshiva were killed.
This week's violence came as Israeli security forces have been on heightened security alert for terrorist attacks.
The head of the Shin Bet security service told a parliamentary committee Tuesday that there were warnings of 60 attacks, and that 12 had been thwarted in recent days.
Observers noted that while Israel's heavy presence in Palestinian areas may have succeeded in thwarting recent attacks, the motivation to carry out such attacks remains high.
Israel's Channel One Television reported Tuesday night that a female suicide bomber and her handler had been arrested by undercover Israeli army units in the West Bank city of Ramallah. They allegedly planned to carry out an attack in a large Israeli city.
Earlier Tuesday, a security alert in central Israel was lowered after Israeli troops nabbed a Palestinian suspected of planning to carry out a suicide bombing.
The suspected bomber and an accomplice were arrested near the Israeli Arab town of Kafr Kasim, Israel Radio reported. Israeli soldiers located the explosives belt the bomber intended to use and destroyed it.