Two suicide bombers, both from the Nablus refugee camp of Askar though not members of the same organization, blew themselves up yesterday within an hour of each other at Rosh Ha'ayin, east of Petah Tikva, and at Ariel, east of Rosh Ha'ayin over the Green Line in Samaria. Killed in the blasts were 42-year-old Yehezkel Yekutiel of Rosh Ha'ayin, and in Ariel, 18-year-old Erez Hershkovitz of Elon Moreh.
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The bombings prompted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to halt a prisoner release underway and to declare that if the Palestinian Authority doesn't fight terror, the Palestinians won't get "what they want" - a Palestinian state, albeit in provisional borders, by the end of this year.
But Israel was not planning a military response to the bombings even as it stepped up pressure on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. Defense Minster Shaul Mofaz, who cut short an overseas vacation to return home last night, is to convene the defense establishment chiefs to discuss the situation this morning. But government sources said last night Jerusalem has no intention of "breaking the rules" and canceling the cease-fire.
Sharon met yesterday with U.S. State Department envoy William Burns and demanded Washington step up the pressure on the Palestinians. He reviewed the events of recent days and pointed to various incidents that he said proved the PA was not taking seriously its commitments made at the Aqaba summit in June. Attending yesterday's session was John Wolf, the chief U.S. monitor of the road map.
Wolf met on Monday with Palestinian Minister for Security Mohammed Dahlan and demanded the PA step up action against armed factions. Dahlan said the PA was weak and and doesn't have responsibility in the West Bank and doesn't have enough forces in that territory to take action.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, in the Gulf to shore up support from Arab states for his shaky government, cut short his trip to return home, and denounced the bombings but he blamed Israel for the teetering hudna (cease-fire), because of IDF raids into Palestinian areas.
Hamas, taking responsibility for the Ariel attack, and the Fatah-related Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, claiming the Rosh Ha'ayin blast, said they were vengeance for an Israeli raid into Nablus over the weekend that killed two bomb-makers.
The first blast occurred at around 9 A.M. in a supermarket in the Neve Afek neighborhood of Rosh Ha'ayin, killing one person and wounding 10 others. The second explosion followed within an hour at the entrance to Ariel, the large settlement city in Samaria. Ariel Mayor Ron Nahman would later say that the bombing was proof that the idea of the separation fence not including Ariel "was put to rest today."
A cell claiming to be the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, said the Rosh Ha'ayin bomber was Islam Yousef Qteishat, 17, of Askar refugee camp. Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon termed the cell "Fatah renegades." Hamas told Hezbollah TV in Lebanon that its bomber was 17-year-old Khamis Ghazi Gerwan, also of Askar. Both said the attacks were in response to Israeli operations against Palestinians in the territories, with Hamas citing the Nablus operation over the weekend.
But security sources said the bombings required more planning that the four days since that raid, where the IDF said it found a photograph of the Ariel junction where the suicide bomber struck.
In the Rosh Ha'ayin attack, the bomber set off the device in his backpack near the entrance to the NewPharm pharmacy/grocery. Police are trying to determine why the security guard at the shopping center failed to apprehend the bomber. Police said the blast was relatively small, but it started a fire that swept through several shops before firemen got it under control.
Twenty minutes before the blast, a pinpointed bit of intelligence came in saying an attack was in motion for the area and police had begun taking action to seal the Sharon area. But the reports came in too late for police to make their way to the shopping center. Right after the bombing, the IDF closed off the entrances to Qalqilyah and imposed a curfew on the nearby village of Azun, arresting several Palestinians in the village. A Palestinian security source said the Palestinian Authority had warned Israel about the terror attacks, Channel 10 reported.
In the second attack in Ariel, the suicide bomber set off the explosive device strapped to his body when he saw several young Israelis at a bus stop on the road heading from the West Bank settlement toward Tel Aviv. One youth was killed and three were wounded, two seriously. Knafo said the bomb was large, "10-15 kilograms," much larger than the smaller bomb that went off in Rosh Ha'ayin
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