OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An activist of Islamic Jihad group blew himself up in a busy cafe near the northern port city of Haifa yesterday, injuring 15 people, just three days after a kamikaze attack in Jerusalem killed 16.
The attack yesterday hit the Wall Street cafe in Kiryat Motzkin, a small town just north of Haifa.
Al-Manar television, owned by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it had received an Islamic Jihad statement claiming the “Jerusalem Brigades”, the movement’s armed faction, had carried out the attack.
The activist who blew himself up was Muhammad Mahmud Bakr Nasr, 28, from the town of Qabatiya, near Jenin in the north of West Bank, the statement said.
It read: “This operation is a reprisal for the massacres committed by the Zionist enemy against our people. We have also proven that we are capable of hitting deeply at the Zionist enemy and other heros are ready to die martyrs.”
Though the activist was the only fatality, the implications for Israel were awesome. The Islamic Jihad movement promised further bombings. Nasr’s father, Mahmoud, revealed to reporters at his West Bank home of Qabatya that his son had been working for Arafat’s own security services until just six weeks ago.
The parallels with Thursday’s attack were frightening. The Sbarro pizzeria stood on the corner of two major roads, Jaffa Street and King George’s Street.
The Wall Street Cafe was on the corner of another intersection, Jerusalem Street and Ben Gurion Boulevard north of Haifa. Islamic Jihad leader, Sheikh Abdullah Shami, stated that Nasr had been “able to penetrate into the heart of Zionism with all its security measures”
Israel’s hard-line Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday gave Foreign Minister Shimon Peres the green light to negotiate a cease-fire with the Palestinians, but not to talk with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a source close to the government said.
Peres, an architect of the Middle East peace process, was given the go-ahead to meet senior Palestinian officials, if accompanied by an Israeli general, in order to carry out talks on restoring a failed cease-fire, but not to hold political talks, the source said.
Peres had told a meeting of his left-leaning political party, Labor, there was “no chance” of reviving a shattered cease-fire unless the government starts talking to Arafat.
“Without that, there will be no chance. If we do not make a supreme effort (to start talks) the result will be continuing violence at every level and the strengthening of Hamas,” Peres said. “Some people say that there should be no negotiations under fire and I accept that ... but there must be negotiations to apply the cease-fire,” Peres told the radio.
Peres was addressing the central committee of his Labor party, partners in the coalition led by Sharon.
“I do not believe it is possible to only use weapons to silence weapons. That does not work, and that is the truth,” he said. He had said at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day that the government had to rethink its policy of refusing to talk with the Palestinians.
About the blast, Israeli public television had earlier quoted hospital officials as saying 36 people were injured, but soon dropped that toll to around 20, adding that none were thought to be in serious condition. Later, the toll was revised at 15.
In another development, Israel yesterday barred activities by the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem.
“Activities of a diplomatic or administrative character — by a foreign entity — inside the State of Israel, without its consent, constitute an infringement of Israeli sovereignty,” the statement said.
