Palestinian Militants Slain in Lebanon

A car bomb killed a senior Islamic Jihad official and his brother Friday in southern Lebanon, and Israel denied the Palestinian militant group’s charge that it was responsible.

The bomb was planted in a parked car and exploded as Mahmoud Majzoub, known as Abu Hamza, and his brother Nidal, also an Islamic Jihad member, approached, security sources said. The blast reduced the vehicle to a charred, twisted mass of metal and showered the area with debris.

Nidal Majzoub was killed instantly, and Mahmoud died later during surgery, Islamic Jihad officials said.

“This is an Israeli attack and a dangerous escalation,” Islamic Jihad official Ali Abu Shahine said in Beirut.

Islamic Jihad, the only main Palestinian faction to shun a 15-month-old truce with Israel, vowed revenge.

Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for the group’s armed wing in the Gaza Strip, said there would be no retaliation outside Israel and the Palestinian territories, but warned of “violent and painful reactions inside the depth of the Zionist entity.”

Islamic Jihad, dedicated to Israel’s destruction, has killed more than 30 people in suicide bombings inside the Jewish state since the truce began, including an attack that left 11 people dead in Tel Aviv on April 17.

An Israeli government source said the Jewish state had “nothing to do” with Friday’s attack.

Hamas, which won Palestinian elections and now controls the government, condemned the attack, which it also blamed on Israel.

“We consider this Zionist crime a dangerous escalation through the enemy’s attempt to widen the circle of confrontation and avert the gaze from the crimes it continues to commit in the Palestinian territories,” Hamas said in a statement.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora indirectly blamed Israel for the attack, saying it was not interested in a calm Lebanon.

Several other Palestinian militants and officials of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla group have been killed in Lebanon in recent years in attacks their organizations have blamed on Israel.