ISRAEL: A Palestinian suicide bomber killed the owner of a grocery shop in Israel yesterday, as hundreds of Israeli soldiers wrestled with Jewish settlers at an illegal outpost in the West Bank.
On the Israeli right, the suicide bombing at Sdeh Trumot in the north of the country, which came a day after a seven-year-old girl was shot dead by a Palestinian gunman inside Israel near the West Bank border further south, reinforced the scepticism over Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's pledge to end such attacks. And it underlined their determination to resist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's efforts to evacuate dozens of illegal settlement outposts. "We won't leave here. Alive," read a huge placard unfurled at the outpost, Mitzpeh Yizhar, where troops and settlers clashed yesterday, and 15 settlers were arrested.
For the Israeli army, by contrast, the colossal investment of manpower involved in attempting to remove the outpost - about 1,00 soldiers and policemen confronted a roughly equal number of settlers at Mitzpeh Yizhar throughout yesterday - is deflecting vital resources from the battle against the Palestinian bombers.
Military officials noted yesterday that the gunman who killed seven-year-old Noam Leibowitz as she travelled with her family in their car on the Trans-Israel Highway on Tuesday, reached the road via a drainpipe under the massive new security wall Israel is erecting in the West Bank.
The drainpipe is a known weak-spot in the wall, the officials said, but the army did not have sufficient personnel to guard it.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, will today pitch himself into this ongoing Middle East violence, flying in to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a bid to salvage the faint hopes of new dialogue raised by the Aqaba summit talks earlier this month. Mr Abbas is still hoping to reach an intifada ceasefire agreement with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other extremist groups, but the Islamic groups have rejected even an offer by the Palestinian prime minister of a significant role in a joint political leadership.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at Sdeh Trumot yesterday in which Avner Mordechai (63), a father of six, was killed.
The bomber walked into Mr Mordechai's grocery store and detonated explosives he was carrying in a large black bag. Police believe that either Mr Mordechai confronted him, or that the device detonated prematurely, and that the bomber had intended to detonate it on a bus or in a crowd.