Suicide bombing follows Israeli missile attack

8.30am

RISHON LETZION, Israel - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded pedestrian mall near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, killing at least one other person and wounding 20.

The attack in the town of Rishon Letzion, the second suicide bombing there in two weeks, occurred about two hours after the Israeli army killed a senior Palestinian militant and two subordinates in a West Bank missile strike.

It was the second suicide bombing in three days after a pronounced lull following an Israeli army offensive last month in the West Bank that was intended to halt a spate of attacks.

In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was moving to resolve a ruling coalition crisis triggered after he fired two allied ultra-Orthodox parties who refused to vote for emergency austerity measures prompted by soaring military spending.

Yehuda Bachar, police commander in central Israel, said at least one person other than the bomber had been killed in the blast near Rishon Letzion's city garden.

An army radio reporter at the scene, a few kilometres south of Tel Aviv, Israel's biggest city, said the crushed remains of one person could be seen on the pavement.

Assaf, a witness, told the radio station that the blast occurred near an outdoor cafe "where there are tables and a lot of foreign workers sit there and play cards".

"Now there is hysteria here," he said. "(Police) are trying to push all the onlookers away and they keep coming back. It's like a madhouse. I saw five or six people lying on the ground."

The most recent previous suicide bombing was in the coastal resort town of Netanya on Sunday when three people were killed in an attack on an outdoor market.

In the West Bank, Israeli missiles killed Mahmoud Titi, a commander in the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, two fellow activists and a Palestinian civilian as they stood in a cemetery in the Balata refugee camp outside the city of Nablus.

An offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's movement, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are blamed by Israel for a string of deadly suicide bombings against Israelis in a 20-month-old Palestinian uprising against occupation, but none since an Israel offensive against West Bank militants in April.

Israeli military sources confirmed the missile strike, which fitted in with Sharon's tough approach to the uprising that has won him popularity across a normally fractured political landscape.

However, the government's policy of targeting suspected Palestinian commanders for elimination has sometimes provoked fresh waves of Palestinian attacks.

Violence against Israelis has eased since the army's West Bank sweep. Israeli forces continue to encircle towns that they temporarily reoccupied in April, years after the areas had won self-rule under interim peace deals.

Israeli Channel One television said Titi had been wanted for alleged involvement in attacks on a Jewish bar mitzvah ceremony in Hadera, a Tel Aviv restaurant and a target in Jerusalem.

The impending ejection from the government of the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties would cut from 82 to 60 the number of seats held by Sharon's coalition in the 120-member assembly.

However, at least one secular opposition party was expected to join up with Sharon and the government was in no immediate danger of falling.

A narrower government, however, was likely to increase the right-wing Sharon's reliance on the centre-left Labour Party, which backs a more conciliatory approach towards Palestinians.

Amid high drama in parliament, Shas and United Torah Judaism legislators absented themselves on Wednesday rather than repeat the "no" votes they cast on Monday against the economic edicts, including welfare payment cuts and higher taxes.

However, Sharon put them on notice he would not retract the cabinet eviction notices he issued after Monday's rebellion. These were to take effect close to midnight local time (9.00am today NZT) at the end of a 48-hour cooling-off period.

"The break with these parties is final. The matter is closed," Sharon told reporters.

He spoke after parliament voted 65-26 for the emergency plan to curb a budget deficit swollen by falling tax revenues and higher spending on trying to quell the Palestinian revolt.

The 13-billion-shekel ($5.83-billion) austerity bill still requires two more votes, due in about two weeks, to become law.

Editorials praised Sharon for punishing the religious rebel groups, viewed by many secular Israelis as narrow-interest parties that drain public funds for the benefit of Jewish seminary students who neither work nor serve in the army.

Shas, Israel's third-largest party with 17 parliamentary seats, says the austerity measures will damage the interests of its core constituency of low-income Israelis.

A poll in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Wednesday showed 70 per cent of Israelis supported Sharon's stance against Shas. The Maariv daily put the figure at 62 per cent.

As Sharon grappled with domestic politics, the army cut a highway linking the northern and southern Gaza Strip for several hours in what it said was a response to mortar attacks on Jewish settlements. Troops later reopened the junction.

Soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in a checkpoint incident on the road from Bethlehem in the West Bank to Jerusalem.

The army also said a Palestinian died near the West Bank city of Jenin when explosives he was carrying detonated. Palestinian sources identified him as an Islamic Jihad member.

At least 1367 Palestinians and 477 Israelis have been killed since the uprising erupted in September 2000 shortly after talks on a final peace treaty became deadlocked.

- REUTERS

Feature: Middle East

Related links