Israel Bus Blast Kills 6, but Peace Talks Aren’t Derailed : Mideast: Negotiations are suspended after attack that also wounds 32 people, but Rabin vows they will continue.

After a suicide bomber detonated explosives in the middle of a bus in a Tel Aviv suburb, killing five Israelis and wounding 32, Israel temporarily halted its peace negotiations with the Palestinians on Monday.

The attacker--who authorities suspect was an Islamic militant who used a pipe bomb--was also killed in the blast.

“I heard the explosion, then I saw black smoke going in all directions,” said Arieh Ozeri, a driver who was piloting his empty bus in Ramat Gan’s busy business district, a few yards from the No. 20 bus that exploded. “I ran out to help people. I pulled some woman away from the bus who had holes in her legs, and her hands were burned. Then I just sat down and cried like a baby.”

Saying it would be “unthinkable” to continue peace talks “as though nothing has happened,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he was halting negotiations until the dead were buried.

But Rabin also insisted, in a long address to the nation hours after the bombing, that negotiations will resume soon. “This is a tough moment, but we should not let these crazy and murderous acts stop us from pursuing the process,” he said. “We must continue and we will continue.”

Ahmed Korei, chief Palestinian negotiator, said he expects talks to resume Thursday. Korei said that he will recommend they be moved out of the Middle East.

A caller to the Associated Press claimed that Hamas, the militant Islamic movement, was responsible for the attack. Speaking in Arabic, the caller said that Hamas carried out the bombing “because of Israel’s violation of accords and procrastination in implementing the accords with Palestinians.”

As the bomb went off, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were gathered at a Dead Sea resort, struggling to meet today’s deadline for reaching agreement on expanding Palestinian self-rule throughout the West Bank. The two sides have been trying to resolve differences over who should control the West Bank’s water resources and over security measures designed to protect more than 120,000 Jewish settlers living among the West Bank’s 1 million Palestinians.

Negotiators said they were unable to focus on their agenda after news of the bombing reached them. “We are just sitting around with the Israelis, talking,” said Palestinian negotiator Hisham Razek, speaking to Israel Radio before Rabin suspended negotiations. “There will be no adequate atmosphere to continue the talks. This is anti-peace, anti the national interest and anti the Palestinian people.”

President Ezer Weizman joined leaders of Israeli opposition parties in calling on the government to reassess its participation in peace negotiations after the bombing. “The leaders will have to reconsider and think what should be done because the attacks continue,” he told Israel Radio. “We cannot disregard the events; we cannot continue like this.”

Rabin was booed and jeered by hundreds of angry onlookers when he toured the mangled bus after the dead and wounded had been removed from the scene.

“This is the last year of Mr. Rabin,” vowed Roni Shapiro, a Ramat Gan resident who shook with anger after he watched Rabin and Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak pick through the shattered glass and debris that littered the street in front of the 40-story diamond exchange building and office complex.

“We’ll put him down,” Shapiro said as friends nodded their heads in agreement. “It is all his fault. He brought all these disasters on us--Dizengoff, Beit Lid, now this,” he said, referring to two previous bus bombings carried out by Islamic militants. At least 131 Israelis have been killed in attacks by militants since Israel signed a framework peace accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization in September, 1993.

Rabin announced that he was indefinitely closing crossing points into Israel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a move he has taken after each previous attack. The closure prevents Palestinian workers and goods produced in the territories from entering Israel.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat decried the bombing. “I condemn completely these terrorist activities,” he told reporters after he held a scheduled meeting with Health Minister Ephraim Sneh to discuss setting up a joint Israeli-Palestinian medical center. The bombing, Arafat said, “is an attempt to sabotage the talks and the peace process.” Arafat later telephoned Rabin to offer his condolences.

There had been no successful suicide bombings against Israelis for more than three months before Monday’s attack. Some Palestinian officials had said Arafat had reached an agreement with Hamas, the largest Islamic militant group in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that it would halt such attacks while the PLO negotiated the extension of its authority throughout the West Bank.

But Rabin said Monday that there was no such agreement. He said there had been no successful attacks since April because Israeli and Palestinian security services had done a good job of thwarting attempts. “We had clear intelligence in the past three months about their [the militants’] wishes to commit a murderous attack close to the date the agreement was to be reached,” Rabin said.

Two hours after the No. 20 bus was bombed, its driver was steering another vehicle down the same route. Moshe Ilan, who has driven the No. 20 route from Ramat Gan to Tel Aviv for 10 years, told Israel Television that his company psychologist had recommended that he immediately return to his routine after Ilan escaped the bombing with a few scratches.

Ilan said he did not sympathize with those demonstrating at the attack site. “I would tell them what I tell everybody,” he said. “We need peace.”

Just 300 feet from the crippled bus on Abba Hillel Street, less than three hours after Monday’s attack, Yoram Werner watched through the windows of his Spaghettza restaurant as emergency workers and onlookers milled about outside.

Forensics experts searched the bus for evidence; one stood, holding a woman’s high-heeled shoe and blood-spattered glasses near the twisted remains of a seat.

Werner surveyed the scene mournfully but said his restaurant would be open for lunch as usual. “It is wrong to think that people are calm, because this sort of thing hits them later,” he said. “The problem is that people get used to it. We have all been through so much.”

As his cook pulled loaves of bread from the oven behind him, Werner shrugged when a reporter asked if he thought the government should stop negotiating with the Palestinians.

“I think they should have acted toward the Palestinians years ago the way Arab governments act against their people,” Werner said. “Now the Palestinians have no fear. So these things can happen in Ramat Gan, in Tel Aviv. But still, you have to give peace a shot. I want my children to grow up in peace, not the way I have lived.”