OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 28 January — A Palestinian woman detonated explosives in West Jerusalem’s main shopping street yesterday, killing herself and an Israeli bystander and injuring at least 37 others. No organization claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Al-Manar, the television channel of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, said the woman was a student at Al-Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus.
The blast gutted the Freimann and Bein shoe shop, just meters from the Sbarro pizzeria on Jaffa Road, West Jerusalem’s main commercial artery, where 15 people were killed by a Hamas bomber on Aug. 9. Despite heavy security deployed after a spate of bloody attacks on Jaffa Road, the woman managed to set off a massive device. The blast raised the specter of fresh Israeli retaliation.
It was also likely to increase Israeli and US pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to do more to rein in Palestinian hard-liners. US Vice President Dick Cheney for the first time directly implicated Arafat in a recent arms smuggling incident and questioned the Palestinian leader’s commitment to peace.
It was the first time a female bomber has carried out a fatal bomb attack in Israel during the 16-month old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. "We’ve had intelligence warnings on woman suicide attackers, albeit not recently," Deputy Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack. In a statement, it called on the United States, which last week postponed a truce mission by its envoy Anthony Zinni, to send him back to the region without delay.
Two days ago a Palestinian killed himself and wounded 25 people in Tel Aviv. Last Tuesday, a Palestinian killed two Israeli women on Jaffa Road, near the scene of yesterday’s bombing. Police shot him dead.
Voicing criticism of Arafat after Friday’s blast, US President George W. Bush told reporters: "I am disappointed in Yasser Arafat. He must make a full effort to rout out terror in the Middle East."
Cheney, his deputy, told ABC television yesterday: "We’ve just seen evidence that he was involved in this Karine A shipment." he was referring the 50 tons of arms Israel seized from the freighter in international waters of the Red Sea on Jan. 3.
Asked about Arafat’s denial of his involvement in a letter to Bush, Cheney said: "We don’t believe him." US officials had until now said Palestinian Authority officials were involved in the smuggling attempt but Cheney’s comments marked the first time Arafat himself was implicated.
"He has been implicated now in an operation that puts him working with a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and Iran, a state that’s devoted to torpedoing the peace process," the vice president added. Both the Palestinian Authority and Iran have denied any knowledge of the shipment.
On the latest bomb attack, Cheney said: "We’re not going to get a handle on the peace process until somebody gets control of those terrorist activities, and that’s Yasser Arafat’s responsibility. He has not fulfilled those responsibilities."
"We’ve been deeply disappointed by his inability or his unwillingness to control the terrorist threat launched from Palestine against Israeli civilians," he told ABC, echoing Bush.
Bush discussed with his foreign policy aides on Friday what punitive steps he might take against the Palestinian Authority. Jordan and Egypt condemned the Jerusalem attack, but the two US allies urged Washington not to cut ties with Arafat.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said the United States was sending the wrong message. "I’m afraid that these American statements will be understood by (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon as a green light to escalate the aggression," Erekat said.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin said he was opposed to Israel’s treatment of Arafat and urged both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to exercise restraint and return to the negotiation table. "We oppose Israeli military attacks on Palestine, the economic blockade and actions threatening the security of Palestinian lives and property," Jiang was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying in a letter to Arafat.
Earlier in the day, Sharon’s spokesman Raanan Gissin said Israel would not allow Arafat to attend an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels today. "Arafat cannot take part in the meeting of the European foreign ministers’ in Brussels which is set for Monday. He will not leave because he has to prove he is acting against terrorism and has to arrest the killers of Rehavam Zeevi," Gissin said, referring to the Israeli tourism minister slain last October.
Zeevi was shot dead by gunmen from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in a revenge attack for Israel’s assassination of the group’s leader Abu Ali Mustapha. Arafat has arrested the PFLP’s new leader Ahmed Saadat, but Israel dismissed his detention as a sham.
In another development, a crowd of more than 100 Palestinians, shouting and cheering, succeeded in releasing seven activists from a jail in Bethlehem. The crowd released the men from the jail after all but a skeleton crew had left the building, anticipating retaliatory strikes from Israel for the Jerusalem bombing. The released included Yahya Daamsa, a member of the Fatah group. Daamsa is one of 33 men on Israel’s most wanted list handed to the Palestinian Authority for immediate arrest during Zinni’s November-December visit to the region.
