Bomb Injures 5 Arab Children; Jewish Settlers Are Blamed

A bomb exploded in a West Bank school Tuesday, wounding five Palestinian children, and Israeli police and Palestinian officials said they believed that extremist Jewish settlers were behind the blast.

Israeli military officials said the explosion occurred in the courtyard of an elementary school in the West Bank village of Yatta, south of the city of Hebron.

A second bomb was found and safely detonated.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, a 14-year-old Palestinian was killed in the Tulkarm refugee camp when a bomb he was apparently making blew up, Palestinian security officials said.

As the violence continued, the U.S. and its key global partners in Mideast peacemaking met at the United Nations in New York and agreed to attempt to establish a provisional Palestinian state next year.

They issued a communique outlining three phases, with the aim of a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians being reached by 2005.

It specifies that Israel should end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip but does not say whether Israel should give up all land the Arabs lost in the 1967 Middle East War.

Nor is there a direct reference to Jerusalem, part of which Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat expects to become the capital of a Palestinian state.

To prepare for a state, the document also suggests that the Palestinians adopt a constitution with provisions to stop corruption and to provide “the vibrant political system which Palestinians deserve.”

The communique was the first major political document by “the quartet,” an ad hoc enterprise of the European Union, Russia, the U.N. and the U.S. to bring an end to the Mideast impasse.

Five Arab nations, Israel and the Palestinian Authority also participated.