Palestinian Bomb Maker Dies in Explosion

A Palestinian woman was blown apart by a bomb she was preparing in a crowded Jerusalem market Monday, the eve of a PLO anniversary, and an Israeli air strike over Lebanon killed seven PLO guerrillas.

Police linked the Jerusalem blast to the 26th anniversary on New Year’s Day of the first guerrilla attack against Israel by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement.

Security sources said the 24-year-old Bethlehem woman was priming a pipe bomb in a public restroom inside a fruit and vegetable market in the heart of Jewish West Jerusalem.

No one else was hurt in the blast, which caused little damage. Security sources said they believe she planned to hide the bomb in a bag of vegetables.

Eight Israelis have been killed and several wounded in knife and hammer revenge attacks since 20 Arabs died in a clash with police in Oct. 8 disturbances on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

At midnight Sunday, Israeli aircraft wiped out a PLO Fatah base near Sidon in Lebanon about 22 miles from Israel’s northern border, security sources in Lebanon said.

The sources said the air strike killed seven guerrillas and wounded eight. Israeli military sources said the post was used to launch attacks against the Jewish state.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the army confined one million Arabs to their homes ahead of the Fatah anniversary. Authorities closed schools in the territories.

Fatah, the largest PLO group, has threatened to increase attacks against Israel in retaliation for rising Arab casualties in the three-year uprising against Israeli occupation. In a statement Sunday, Fatah vowed to “scorch the land under the feet of the occupiers and cause them painful blows.”

But Bassam abu Sharif, a senior adviser to Arafat, said the PLO has not lifted its ban on the use of firearms.