Envoy Calls On 2 Sides to Halt Mideast Clashes

Two car bombs in the heart of downtown Jerusalem Sunday--nine hours and one block apart--jolted nervous Israelis, stoked calls for swift retaliation and provided an inauspicious welcome for a new truce-seeking U.S. envoy.

William Burns, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan and the Bush administration’s new point man on the Middle East, pressed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat separately to halt the worst Arab-Israeli fighting in decades.

Burns told reporters afterward that he also urged Arafat to “do everything possible” to stop the terrorism attacks--like Sunday’s twin bombings--that have repeatedly rattled Jerusalem and several Israeli cities.

Sharon promised Burns that he would continue to “restrain” his troops and avoid offensive operations against Palestinian targets but said that he could not do so indefinitely, the prime minister’s office said. Sharon has declared a cease-fire, but the Palestinians see it as a stunt. Violence has not let up.

Burns’ visit marked the advent of Bush administration involvement in the Middle East, following early indications by the administration that it would stay clear of the intractable mire of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Yet the effort, by all appearances, remains very tentative.

Burns, who is awaiting confirmation as assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, planned additional meetings with Arafat and Israeli officials today, which he will use to promote the findings of a blue-ribbon inquiry led by former Sen. George J. Mitchell. The Mitchell report urges, among other steps, a quick cease-fire to be followed by a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Group Vows More Martyrs Are on the Way

There were no serious injuries in Sunday’s car bombings. Two radical Palestinian organizations claimed responsibility for the blasts, and one of them, Islamic Jihad, vowed that “more car bombs and martyrs are on their way,” according to a statement faxed to news agencies.

The first car bomb sent a tube of flames and sparks into the night sky when it detonated near a strip of bars and discos crowded with Israeli youths shortly after midnight Saturday. No one was hurt, but hundreds of people gathered to watch the car burn.

A second car bomb built of six mortar shells, nails and bullets exploded a block away near Jerusalem’s central Jaffa Street about 9 a.m. Normally, the area would have been packed, but many Israelis had already left town to get a jump on the Shavuot holiday, which began Sunday night.

The blast rained mortar shell fragments for several hundred feet, and an unexploded mortar shell landed on the roof of a nearby building. Two people were wounded by glass shards as smoke filled the downtown sky, and police roped off the area for five hours while they searched for additional explosives.

Israel’s police commander, Shlomo Aharonishki, said “dozens” of terrorist cells have been activated inside Israel and appear to be making Jerusalem their target. Mortar shells, he said, have been used before in bombs, but this device reminded Israelis of one of their biggest fears, that Palestinians in the West Bank have mortars at their disposal. All mortars launched thus far have been from the Gaza Strip.

Jerusalem Blasts Stir Sense of Dread, Anger

For Israelis, the bombs in the heart of Jerusalem shattered nerves and compounded a sense of dread and anger. In barely 48 hours last week, Israelis were injured in two suicide bombings and a stampede at a soccer stadium. There also was a devastating wedding-hall disaster Thursday night, in which 23 people were killed and more than 300 injured when three floors of the building gave way.

Jeff Zagway, a city worker and reserve paratrooper who lives about a block from Sunday’s bomb sites, bounded out of his home in the middle of the night after the first blast to help with crowd control. But the second bomb left him dispirited and listless.

“I’m fed up,” he said. “Look at me. I haven’t shaved, I haven’t put on decent clothes, I’m a mess. We don’t know when the next one will be. But we know there will be a next one.”

Naomi Eliezrie, a 19-year-old Yorba Linda, Calif., resident here to study at a seminary for a year, ran frantically, grabbed her friends and burst into tears after the early Sunday bombing caught her on lively Ben Yehuda Street downtown.

“I never felt such fear,” she said. “I never knew what it was about until now, when you’re running for your life searching for shelter.”

Angry crowds who gathered at the bomb sites demanded that Sharon’s government strike back.

“It will be very difficult to continue to be restrained,” Jerusalem’s mayor, Ehud Olmert, said. “We cannot allow our capital to be put under siege. We cannot go on like this.”