Israel's Maccabiah Games - a four-yearly international sporting competition also known as the "Jewish Olympics" - opened last night but were overshadowed by violence when a suicide bomber killed two Israeli soldiers near a train station and troops responded by shelling four Palestinian security targets in the West Bank.
Israel swore swift retaliation after the bomber, from the militant Islamic Jihad group, detonated explosives strapped to his body near the train station at Binyamina, north of Tel Aviv, killing the soldiers as well as himself. The blast occurred minutes before the games were due to begin.
Palestinian security officials said checkpoints manned by the Palestinian National Security Forces and by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's special Force 17 guard unit had come under fire near the West Bank towns of Jenin and Tulkarm. Israeli military sources said "in response to the suicide bombing in Binyamina, the army has opened fire on four Palestinian posts in the West Bank."
Earlier a pre-dawn attempted bombing around the corner from the Maccabiah stadium killed two Palestinians who were apparently preparing the device. This brought yesterday's violent death toll to five.
An aide to the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, said the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, and his "consortium of terrorism" were responsible for the latest attacks, which came a day after Mr Arafat met Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, in Egypt. Knesset members from Mr Sharon's Likud party, who met Mr Peres yesterday, castigated him for continuing to meet Mr Arafat.
One of the two militants killed in the explosion of a bomb they were trying to plant near the stadium hosting the games was a member of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction.
In a rare Hebrew-language interview, Mr Jibril Rajoub, Mr Arafat's West Bank security chief, told Israel Television he opposed such bombings.
But the games went ahead as planned and Mr Sharon sounded a defiant note at their start: "Today another terrible crime of Palestinian terror has struck us," he told the thousands of athletes and spectators at Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium.
"Your arrival in Israel from the far corners of the earth is a testimony to the victory of the spirit of the ancient Maccabeans."