MIDDLE EAST: Israeli leaders vowed swift retaliation yesterday after a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated the explosives-filled car he was driving alongside a bus in the north of the country, consuming the two vehicles in a huge fireball which killed 17 Israelis, most of them soldiers, and the bomber.
Israel sent tanks into the northern West Bank town of Jenin, from where the bomber hailed, while Apache attack helicopters hovered overhead, in what the army said was only an initial response to the suicide attack.
"There is no doubt that Israel cannot sit quietly and refrain from considering an operation, a very, very significant response, in order to prevent disasters of this type," said the Education Minister, Ms Limor Livnat, of the ruling Likud Party. Ms Livnat did not elaborate on what measures might be taken.
As in past attacks, Israel blamed the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, for the bombing, for which the militant Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack, and Palestinian sources said that Mr Arafat would issue orders for the arrest of Islamic Jihad members if it was clear the group had carried out the bombing. Last night, the organisation identified the bomber as Hamze Samudi, one of its activists from Jenin.
The attack, which occurred at 7.20 a.m. local time, was the deadliest strike since the Israeli army completed its broad military offensive in the West Bank in April, which the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, launched after a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel.
The bomber struck at the Megiddo Junction, adjacent to a jail for Palestinian security prisoners.The bombing reignited demands by some Israeli leaders for the expulsion of Mr Arafat from the territories, and for the launching of a second West Bank offensive, but with the army this time remaining inside Palestinian cities and towns.
"We have to go into the whole of the West Bank and take control for as long as is needed," said the ultra-hawkish Mr Effie Eitam, who heads the right-wing National Religious Party. However, the Labour Minister, Mr Matan Vilnai, a former deputy chief of staff, said Israelis should not delude themselves that military force alone would extinguish terror. "There is no corner, street or alleyway [in the territories\] where we have not trodden, but you still have attacks like the one this morning," he said. "There are things that cannot be achieved by military force alone."
The fact that the bombing came 35 years - almost to the hour - after the outbreak of the 1967 war in which Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip, did not escape Palestinian Cabinet Minister Mr Saeb Erekat.
"Today, June 5th, marks 35 years of the continuing Israeli occupation, with no end in sight," said Mr Erekat, adding that Israel should return to the negotiating table, rather than to Palestinian cities. The use of a car bomb rather than a suicide bomber with an explosives belt, Israeli security experts noted yesterday, had enabled militant groups to use a far larger quantity of explosives. In recent days, the Israeli media have been quoting security officials warning of attacks with hundreds of casualties.
The attack comes amid the latest diplomatic push in the Middle East, and a day after the CIA director, Mr George Tenet met Mr Arafat and urged him to carry out far-reaching reforms of his security apparatus. White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer condemned the bombing, saying it "underscores the fact that these terrorists are the worst enemies, not only of the people of Israel who seek peace, but also of the Palestinian people and their hopes for a better life."
