Israeli police said yesterday that a blast that collapsed a home and killed two people in central Israel was caused by a bombing and was a "terror attack," the first such incident since a Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire was declared last week.
There was, however, no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast and details were still sketchy.
PHOTO: AFP
The explosion leveled a house in Kfar Yavetz, an Israeli village near the West Bank, killing the 65-year-old woman who lived there and an unidentified young man.
"We found parts of the bomb, evidence it was a terror attack, possibly a suicide bombing," said police spokesman Gil Kleiman.
Central region police chief Yehuda Bachar said there was a "very, very high probability" that the dead man blew himself up.
"The way the body was scattered ... indicates a suicide bomber," he told Israel Radio.
If confirmed it would be the first such bombing since Palestinian militants declared a ceasefire on June 29.
While the truce has been accepted by most Palestinian groups, some renegade groups within Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction have rejected the ceasefire. Last week, one of these groups claimed responsibility for shooting dead a Bulgarian construction worker near the West Bank town of Jenin.
Despite sporadic violence, the truce has largely held.
On Monday, Palestinian and Israeli Cabinet members discussed a proposal for the Palestinian prime minister to visit Israel's parliament to lobby for a large-scale prisoner release, an effort to resolve a rapidly escalating crisis over the prisoners held by Israel.
Israel's Cabinet approved guidelines on Sunday for freeing several hundred prisoners, but said that members of radical groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad and anyone involved in attacks on Israelis would not be freed. Israel holds some 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the new measures call for the release of only about 400 prisoners.
The Cabinet said the move was aimed at strengthening the position of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his allies who support the ceasefire. But Palestinian officials said the release must be expanded.
"This is the first time in the history of the Palestinian movement that all the Palestinian factions have agreed on a ceasefire," Hisham Abdal Raziq, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, said at a meeting with the Israeli justice minister, one of numerous such visits in recent days after a freeze of several years.
"This has to be understood and strengthened. How can it be strengthened if you say that you won't release people from Hamas and Islamic Jihad?" he said
Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said, however, that "we will only release prisoners who will commit to keeping peace with us."
The two radical groups have declared only a three-month moratorium on attacks.
At the meeting between Abdal Raziq, Palestinian Justice Minister Abdul Karim Abu Salah and Lapid, the three discussed the idea that Abbas could meet with Lapid's Shinui faction in Israel's parliament to discuss the prisoner release. Shinui is the most moderate group within the coalition government.
Palestinian Information Minis-ter Nabil Amr -- who himself met with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Monday -- said the Palestinians proposed that Abbas and security chief Mohammed Dahlan meet with Israeli Knesset members.
He said Abbas and Arafat both support the idea.
Although Amr said the venue had not been set, momentum appeared to be building toward a Knesset visit by Abbas and Dahlan.
Knesset spokesman Giora Pordes said that Lapid asked Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin for permission for Abbas and Dahlan to visit. Rivlin approved the visit but Pordes said no date has been set and that the Palestinian leaders would be the private guests of Lapid.
And Israeli media were widely reporting Monday night that Abbas would visit the Knesset in coming days.
The truce began on June 30 with Hamas and Islamic Jihad promising to halt attacks against Israel for three months and a militia associated with Arafat's Fatah vowing to halt attacks for six months.
Israel responded by pulling out of parts of Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem, and has promised further withdrawals in the future.
A senior Israeli security source said, however, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were exploiting the ceasefire to rebuild an infrastructure largely destroyed in almost three years of fighting.
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