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Sharon postpones us trip after bombing { May 18 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6471-2003May18.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6471-2003May18.html
Israel's Cabinet Weighs Response to Suicide Bombings
Sharon Postpones U.S. Trip After Sunday Suicide Bombing
By Karin Laub
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2003; 2:51 PM
JERUSALEM -- A Hamas suicide bomber disguised as an observant Jew with a prayer shawl and skullcap killed seven Israeli bus passengers Sunday, an attack that endangered a U.S.-backed peace plan before it got off the ground.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon indefinitely postponed a Washington trip seen as crucial for launching the "road map" plan, and instead convened his Cabinet to weigh a response to the bombing that also wounded 20 passengers.
Several ministers renewed a call for Yasser Arafat's expulsion in the meeting, but were rebuffed by Sharon, TV reports said. In a first response, the Israeli military sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a step that meant little because Palestinians are already subject to stringent travel bans.
Sunday's bus blast was one of four Palestinian attacks within 11 hours, apparently aimed at derailing the peace plan. The attacks -- three suicide bombings and a shooting -- left nine Israeli civilians and five Palestinian assailants dead. The attacks were timed to coincide with the first Israeli-Palestinian summit since 2000, held late Saturday between Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel held Arafat responsible for the attacks, charging that he continues to encourage militants. The Abbas government condemned the bombings, and said it was serious about ending violence.
Israel demands tough measures against the violent groups ahead of any other peace moves, though the peace plan -- a three-stage prescription for ending violence and setting up a Palestinian state by 2005 -- calls for parallel steps. Sharon was to have discussed his reservations with President Bush on Tuesday.
In Washington, the Bush administration condemned Sunday's attack. Sen. Chuck Hagel, a prominent Republican from Nebraska, said Bush should step up his involvement in the search for peace.
Israel's vice premier, Ehud Olmert, accused the international community, particularly the European Union, of undercutting Abbas by refusing to join Israel and the United States in a boycott of Arafat, who they say is tainted by terrorism.
"Many European governments are sending signals that strengthen Yasser Arafat," Olmert told Israel TV's Channel 1, referring to continued meetings between EU officials and the Palestinian leader, whom Israel has confined to the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"As a result, this (Abbas' government) is a paralyzed government ... and we can't even put it to the test of whether it wants to fight terror or not," Olmert said.
One idea apparently being considered by the Cabinet was for Israel to declare that there can be no progress on the peace plan until the international community understands that Arafat must be stripped of influence.
Sunday's bus bombing, the 93rd in 32 months of fighting, went off just before 6 a.m. at a busy intersection on the outskirts of Jerusalem, at the start of morning rush hour on what in Israel is a regular work day.
The bomber, a 19-year-old from the West Bank city of Hebron, was disguised as an observant Jew with a skullcap and white prayer shawl. Just seconds after he boarded the two-sectioned bus, he detonated nail-studded explosives strapped to his body. The gush of metal and fire tore through the leg of the driver, who lost control of the vehicle.
The bodies of the dead remained sitting upright in their seats, including that of a woman with short dark hair whose head slumped back and whose legs were still crossed. One man's body, heaved by the blast, leaned from a broken window.
Among the seven dead were four new immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Twenty passengers were wounded, including six soldiers who were on their way to their bases after weekend leave.
Hamas did not issue a formal claim of responsibility, but Bassem Jamil Tarkrouri, a Hamas activist, was identified by relatives as the assailant. Hamas has carried out dozens of bombings in recent years to try to derail peace efforts.
About half an hour after the bus attack, a second bomber blew himself up on the city's outskirts, apparently after he failed to penetrate road blocks set up in the wake of the first attack. No one else was hurt.
In a suicide bombing Saturday evening, just before the Sharon-Abbas summit, a Hamas assailant killed an Israeli couple in a downtown square in Hebron.
In other incidents Sunday:
-- Fifteen Palestinians wanted by Israel, including those involved in the killing of a Jewish settler in a shooting ambush last week, left Arafat's Ramallah compound, in line with an Israeli demand that the Palestinian leader stop giving them refuge, according to Palestinian officials, among them the governor of Ramallah. Officials said Arafat agreed to remove the men from his compound because he wanted to avoid giving Israel a pretext for a renewed attack on his headquarters.
-- In the Gaza Strip, two Palestinians, ages 18 and 13, were killed by Israeli army fire, doctors said. The 13-year-old was among several dozen youngsters throwing stones at Israeli troops patrolling a Gaza town they seized last week.
-- In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian militiamen dragged a suspected informer into a main square and killed him with several shots to the head, witnesses said.
© 2003 The Associated Press
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