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Israelis planted bomb Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020917/ap_wo_en_po/israel_palestinians_6917http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020917/ap_wo_en_po/israel_palestinians_6917
Police say Israelis may have planted bomb at Palestinian school
Tue Sep 17, 4:57 PM ET
By NASSER SHIYOUKHI, Associated Press Writer
HEBRON, West Bank - A bomb exploded Tuesday in a Palestinian schoolyard, injuring five children and raising concerns that Jewish militants may be joining in on a conflict that has so far pitted mostly Israeli military against Palestinian gunmen, with civilians paying the highest price.
Israeli police believe that Jewish extremists or settlers from the tense city of Hebron planted the bomb that exploded in a school courtyard at the Ziff junction in the West Bank, a remote area populated by Bedouin, seven kilometers (four miles) south of Hebron, according to Rafi Yaffe, spokesman for Israeli police in the West Bank. The junction is in an area under Israeli military control.
In another development, Israel rejected a two-stage Palestinian cease-fire proposal during a meeting Tuesday at the United Nations ( news - web sites) of a group of world leaders, called the Quartet.
The proposal by Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath that attacks against civilians would stop in the first phase and all attacks in a second phase was unacceptable, said a statement from the office of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who attended the meeting.
The proposal was taken to mean that the first stage applied to residents of Israel, while Jewish settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza would still be targeted. Peres said that was unacceptable, the statement said.
Shaath said a condition for the cease-fire would be an Israeli commitment to stop killing suspected Palestinian militants and destroying houses. "If Israel will do that, then this will pave a way for a comprehensive cease-fire, but unfortunately Mr. Peres said that he rejects it," he told The Associated Press.
Also Tuesday, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition by Palestinian families of two suicide bombers to prevent the destruction of their homes by Israeli forces, Army Radio reported. The families of the bombers who carried out the attack on Dec. 1 last year, killing 11 Israelis, insisted that they did not know of the bombers' intentions.
On Tuesday evening, Israeli forces destroyed a house in the Gaza-Egypt border, residents said. The area is the scene of frequent clashes, and Israeli forces often uncover tunnels used for smuggling weapons into Gaza. Also, Israel announced that soldiers would close a road from Beit Lahiya to nearby Gaza City every night, residents said. The military had no comment.
The bomb went off at the school just after recess ended at 9:45 a.m. (0645 GMT), wounding five pupils, including a 6-year-old boy. Police found and disposed of another bomb. While some media reports raised the possibility that the bombs were made by Palestinians and exploded prematurely, Israeli police and security were concentrating on the likelihood that Israelis were responsible.
On July 26, Palestinians killed an Israeli couple, their nine-year-old son and a soldier from Hebron in an ambush at the same intersection.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said he held the Israeli government responsible for Tuesday's bombing. Israel "failed to bring any of those who kill Palestinians in cold blood to justice," he said.
Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, a spokesman for the Jewish Settlers' Council, condemned the bombing as an "immoral and illegal act."
Most of the violent incidents allegedly involving Jewish extremists have centered on the Hebron area. The most recent incident was July 28, when a Palestinian girl was shot and killed during the funeral of an Israeli soldier in the divided city. Settlers are suspected, and several were detained for questioning.
Hebron is divided in to Palestinian and Israeli-controlled zones, with Israeli soldiers patrolling the center of the city, where about 450 Jewish settlers, including some of the most militant in the West Bank, live in three enclaves and clash frequently with Palestinian residents.
On April 28, Israeli police foiled the attack that had the most potential for death and destruction when they stopped a car next to a Palestinian girls school on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and discovered a huge bomb in a trailer the car was pulling. Police arrested four settlers from Bat Ayin, a settlement north of Hebron. The four are still being held. Police say the plan was to detonate the bomb at the school as girls were arriving there in the morning.
The bloodiest incident was on July 19, 2001, when gunmen ambushed a car on a road west of Hebron, killing three Palestinians, including an infant. A shadowy Jewish extremist group claimed responsibility. The gunmen apparently escaped into Israel, and no one has been charged in the ambush.
In March this year, a bomb went off in another Palestinian school in east Jerusalem, injuring a teacher and four children. Jewish militants claimed responsibility for that attack, but no one has been charged.
There have been several other incidents, most involving settlers going on rampages in West Bank villages after Palestinian terror attacks or funerals for Jewish victims.
However, of the 1,790 Palestinians who have been killed in the two-year conflict, Jewish extremists are suspected in only a handful. Since the conflict began, 609 people have been killed on the Israeli side.
Settlers have been prime targets of Palestinian attacks throughout the conflict, and experts have warned that a Jewish terror underground could form to carry out revenge attacks, reminiscent of a settler-dominated terror group in the mid-1980s that attacked Palestinian mayors and a Hebron university and planned to blow up Palestinian buses and the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's holiest site in Jerusalem.
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