Israel Reiterates Its Innocence in Bomber’s Death

Shouting for revenge against Israel, thousands of Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank and Gaza Strip vented their rage Friday over the death of a Muslim militant bomb maker.

“Dear Qassam, blow up Tel Aviv,” crowds chanted, urging the military wing of the Hamas group to avenge Mohiedin Sharif’s death.

Israel rushed to head off possible revenge attacks, sending Ami Ayalon, its top secret service official, to tell Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in Gaza that it had nothing to do with the death of the man dubbed “Engineer II,” political sources said.

In public remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put Arafat on notice that he would hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for any Hamas reprisals.

Sharif’s body was found Sunday near the scene of a car blast in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Israel says Sharif was assembling a bomb for an attack but was killed when it exploded prematurely. An initial Palestinian police statement said Sharif was shot to death three hours before the blast and his body placed near the explosives-laden car, which was detonated by remote control--suggesting an attempt to cover up an assassination.

However, a senior Palestinian official said Friday that Sharif may indeed have been assembling a bomb and that the time between when he was shot and the blast was much less than three hours.

Although Arafat and the Palestinian police have refrained from directly blaming Israel for Sharif’s death, the incident has raised Israeli-Palestinian tensions at a time when Washington is struggling to end a yearlong impasse in the Mideast peace process.

But the Palestinian Authority signaled Friday that it was prepared to give U.S. diplomacy another chance after a four-day mission by U.S. envoy Dennis B. Ross ended without any apparent progress earlier in the week.

A senior Palestinian official said the Palestinian Authority had accepted in principle a U.S. plan proposed by Ross that calls for Israel to hand over an additional 13.1% of the West Bank to Palestinian rule in return for efforts to combat violence.

Israel, however, has said the 13.1% figure is unacceptable.