OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 20 May — A Palestinian disguised as an Israeli soldier blew himself up in an Israeli market yesterday, killing three other people and shattering the belief of the Israelis that Ariel Sharon could guarantee them security. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine both claimed responsibility for the attack that was condemned by the Palestinian Authority of Yasser Arafat.
It was the second attack on the seaside city of Netanya inside two months following an attack on a hotel which killed 29 people in March.
Loudspeakers in the northern West Bank town of Nablus said “a martyr of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades carried out the Netanya attack.” That was a reference to the PFLP’s armed wing, named after PFLP political chief Abu Ali Mustafa, assassinated by the Israeli Army last August.
Earlier, Hamas claimed the attack in an anonymous phone call to AFP. “The Islamic Resistance Movement and its Al-Qassam military branch claim the martyr operation of Netanya,” the caller said.
US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in Washington the attack “underscores the importance of reform of the Palestinian Authority...of getting a unified security apparatus that can be accountable and can deal with issues of terrorism and breaking up terrorist networks”.
Arafat postponed a meeting with his Central Election Committee to discuss planned elections, as committee members from Gaza were unable to make it to the West Bank, underscoring the problems of staging an election under occupation.
Instead, the meeting of the West Bank members went ahead under the chairmanship of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s No. 2 Mahmud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, a Palestinian official said.
They discussed among other issues the difficulty of organizing elections at all levels when voters cannot move freely owing to Israeli travel restrictions. They also reviewed the issue of how Palestinians living in annexed East Jerusalem would be able to cast their ballots.
Arafat could meet with the committee, as he had been scheduled to do, on Wednesday, if the Gaza members are able to make the trip across Israel, the official said.
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo earlier said that polls could not be held while Israel enforced an “apartheid” system in the West Bank, curbing the movement of voters and candidates.
“It is impossible to hold elections in this situation, with candidates unable to move around because of military checkpoints,” Abed Rabbo told reporters.
