Posted on 07/08/2003 3:01:50 AM PDT by kattracks
JERUSALEM (AP) -- The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility Tuesday for a bombing in central Israel that killed two people and apparently violated a weeklong cease-fire pledge.
The group threatened more violence if Israel does not meet its demand for a mass release of Palestinian prisoners.
"Release the prisoners or the consequences will be grave," the group said in a leaflet faxed to The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, momentum appeared to be building toward a visit by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to the Israeli Knesset, where he would lobby for a broader release of Palestinian prisoners -- addressing an issue that has emerged as a major obstacle to the drive to end 33 months of Mideast violence.
It was not clear whether the attack Monday night had been carried out by a splinter within Islamic Jihad and whether it had received authorization from the group's leaders in advance.
The bombing is the first since Palestinian militants declared a cease-fire on June 29.
The movement's political leader in the West Bank, Sheikh Bassam Saadi, said he believed it was "a reaction and a warning" after Israel's decision to release only a fraction of the prisoners it holds and an arrest sweep against Jihad activists earlier this week.
The group identified the bomber as 22-year-old Ahmed Yehyia from the village of Kufr Rai in the northern West Bank.
Israeli police said the Monday blast 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, apparently Yehyia.
"There is supposed to be a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians, yet clearly suicide attacks against Israel are continuing," said Dore Gold, an Israeli spokesman. "This only underscores the importance of the Palestinians fulfilling their road map obligations to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and disarm the terrorist organizations once and for all."
While the truce has been accepted by most Palestinian groups, some renegade groups within Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction have rejected the cease-fire. Last week, one of these groups claimed responsibility for shooting dead a Bulgarian construction worker near the West Bank town of Jenin.
On Monday, Palestinian and Israeli Cabinet members discussed a proposal for the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to visit Israel's parliament to lobby for a large-scale prisoner release.
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 Israeli Cabinet said the move was aimed at strengthening the position of Abbas and his allies who support the cease-fire. 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 cease-fire," 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?"
The two radical groups had 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 Minister Nabil Amr said the Palestinians proposed that Abbas and security chief Mohammed Dahlan meet with Israeli Knesset members.
He said Abbas and Yasser 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.
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 Yasser 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 cease-fire to rebuild an infrastructure largely destroyed in almost three years of fighting.
Israel is demanding that Dahlan move against Hamas and the source warned that Israel is prepared to take action if Dahlan does not act within the next few weeks, the source said.
More than 2,400 Palestinians and 800 Israelis were killed in the fighting that broke out in September 2000 and buried the last Mideast peace effort.
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