New Mideast Attacks Put Truce Talks in Doubt

Attacks by Arab militants that killed seven people and wounded dozens more Sunday triggered retaliatory air raids by Israel against West Bank towns and raised doubts that cease-fire talks set for this week would happen.

Israel blamed Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for the attacks, even though the Palestinian Authority condemned two of them and Islamic groups claimed responsibility. Right-wing Israeli Cabinet members called on Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to cancel his plans to open a series of meetings with Arafat.

Even before Sunday’s carnage, Israeli nerves were frayed by a series of suicide bombings that has killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, part of the Palestinian revolt that is now more than 11 months old.

Sunday’s quick succession of attacks from the northern coast to the Jordan Valley, coupled with the statement that the deadliest was carried out by an Israeli Arab, only deepened the anxiety. Israeli commentators spoke of a coordinated campaign by Palestinian factions to kill as many Israelis as possible.

“People are hysterical,” said Micha Pitro, a member of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, as he helped organize a protest rally near the spot where a vanload of teachers came under fire Sunday morning. “We are afraid that the mix of the bad economic situation and the bad security situation will make people leave this valley. I am angry, and I am frightened.”

The killings began with the assault on the van. The driver, Yaacov Hatsav, and a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher, Sima Franco, were killed, and three other passengers were injured when a gunman leaned out of a jeep and riddled the van’s windows with bullets. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Two hours later, a man carrying a box blew himself up near a train platform in the northern coastal town of Nahariya as the morning train from Tel Aviv disgorged dozens of soldiers and civilians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office identified the bomber as Mohammed Shaker Habashi, a 55-year-old Islamic activist from the village of Abu Snan.

Three Israelis died in the blast, and dozens were wounded. Seventeen people were reportedly still hospitalized Sunday night. Among the wounded were three residents of Abu Snan.

A mixed village of Muslims, Christians and Druze just east of Nahariya in the western Galilee, Abu Snan routinely sends its young men to the Israeli army.

Villagers said they were mortified that one of their own was apparently the first Israeli Arab suicide bomber. Israeli Arabs are Palestinians who live within Israel’s pre-1967 border, and they make up about 18% of the nation’s 6.5 million people. Israeli Arabs have long complained of discrimination and fought for equal rights in employment, education and housing.

Since the Palestinian revolt broke out last September, however, Israeli Arabs have been torn between their identification with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Israeli demands that they demonstrate loyalty to the state. Last October, riots and demonstrations in support of the Palestinian revolt erupted in many Israeli Arab towns and villages. In quelling those disturbances, police killed 13 people, and an inquiry is ongoing.

Security forces have repeatedly warned that Israeli Arabs are being radicalized by the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. Habashi, married and a father, ran last year for head of the village council. But Israel’s security services said he had developed links with the radical Islamic movement Hamas in the nearby West Bank town of Jenin. Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing.

“I heard the news with complete and utter dismay,” said Fawzi Mishlav, head of the Abu Snan local council, in an interview with Israel Television. “The village cannot believe this happened. The entire village strongly condemns this individual’s act. He represented himself and himself alone.”

Three hours after the Nahariya bombing, a car exploded next to an empty bus near the central town of Netanya, where six years ago a pair of Palestinian suicide bombers killed themselves and 21 other people. This time, police said, only the car’s driver was killed. Three people were injured at the intersection, which was filled with soldiers traveling back to their bases on Sunday, the start of Israel’s workweek.

About the time of the Netanya blast, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles into an office of Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Palestinians had evacuated the building after the Nahariya bombing.

Helicopters also attacked an empty Palestinian government building in the West Bank town of Jericho and Palestinian police headquarters near Jenin. In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israel fired tank shells into a Palestinian security post. Palestinians reported three injuries in the raids and braced for possible further retaliation.

Early today, Israeli tanks fired shells into a security post in the West Bank village of Tamoun, reportedly killing one Palestinian security officer and wounding four others.

Sunday’s events triggered calls from both the Israeli public and Cabinet ministers for tougher action against Palestinians. Hard-line Public Security Minister Uzi Landau urged a relentless campaign against Arafat and his security forces.

“Nothing should be immune,” he told Israeli radio. Israeli attacks against Palestinian targets “must be on a continuing, ongoing basis until they understand that terrorism doesn’t pay . . . we should stop all negotiations with Arafat and engage with him [militarily] whenever we can.”

Even Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing opposition in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, said there was no chance for political talks unless Arafat reined in the bombers and gunmen. But Naomi Chazan, a Knesset member from Sarid’s Meretz Party, said the violence was proof that Sharon’s policies have failed.

“Action and reaction, response and attack, is simply not working and cannot work,” Chazan said. “It is time that this government understands that it has to negotiate under fire.”

Sharon has said that he will not engage in any political contacts with the Palestinians until all attacks on Israelis cease. The Palestinians say that a cease-fire is unattainable without tangible political gains.