About 40 Israelis were injured, almost all of them lightly, when a bomb exploded in the centre of Netanya, a coastal town north of Tel Aviv, last night, David Horovitz reports. The one man badly hurt in the blast, according to first reports, was believed to be the bomber.
The explosion came on the 36th anniversary of the founding of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, which had been marked by calls from Fatah officials for an escalation of the intifada against Israel. But Israel officials said the bomb was apparently the work of Islamic militants. Mr Abdel Aziz Rantisi of the Hamas Islamic group had warned earlier that his group might "return to the old weapon of the suicide bombers". The Netanya blast came amid unconfirmed reports that Mr Arafat had given, or was about to give, a conditional positive response to the Clinton proposals. Israeli officials said Mr Arafat was approving the proposals, but with so many reservations as to effectively render them unworkable.
The Palestinian information minister, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, condemned the attack.