ISRAEL effectively suspended the peace process with the Palestinians and declared all out war on Hamas yesterday, after yet another suicide bombing on a bus in the heart of Jerusalem.
Describing his country as in a state of national emergency, the Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, demanded that the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, immediately outlaw all militant groups, confiscate their weapons and arrest their ringleaders. He also announced plans to build an $80 million "separation" barrier between Israel and the West Bank to institutionalise the ongoing entry bans on Palestinians crossing into Israel. This move spells the end of the Prime Minister's own previous vision of integration between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Israeli police force cancelled all holidays, and moved to deploy hundreds of additional policemen and women in Jerusalem, amid fears of further attacks. A new 800 strong bus security force was also being set up, to check every passenger getting on buses in the city.
The latest bombing killed 19 people - 11 Israelis, an Ethiopian tourist, six Romanian workers, and the bomber himself, tentatively identified as Islam Mohammed Abeido, a 24 year old from the Hebron area of the West Bank. The attacker struck in the early morning rush hour, on a number 18 bus, on Jerusalem's main Jaffa Road thoroughfare - exactly the same time, bus number and street as last Sunday's suicide bombing. The duplication seemed deliberate, designed by Hamas to emphasise the ease with which it could sidestep all efforts to thwart its bombers.
As with last week's attack in the city, responsibility for the blast was claimed by a Hamas militant offshoot calling itself The Disciples of Yihya Ayash. Ayash, nicknamed The Engineer, was the master Hamas bomb maker assassinated, presumably by Israel, in Gaza two months ago.
Mr Arafat swiftly and angrily condemned the bombing, which brought the number of Israelis killed in such suicide blasts over the past two years to some 120.
The Palestinian Authority immediately sent out a convoy of armed personnel carriers on to the streets of Gaza in a clear show of force, and continued its round up of alleged Islamic activists, some 300 of whom were arrested last week.
But Israeli military sources claimed that Mr Arafat had failed thus far to arrest any of the dozen or more key Hamas organisers named on a list given to him by the Israeli army chief of staff, Gen Amnon Shahak, last week. And at a news conference in Jerusalem, Mr Peres and Gen Shahak intimated that if Mr Arafat did not tackle Hamas head on this time, Israeli forces might be dispatched to areas newly handed over to Mr Arafat's control.
Although last week's and yesterday's bombers came from areas where Israel is still the occupying power, Mr Peres reiterated his belief that the Hamas infrastructure was being allowed to function freely in the heart of the Gaza area.
At the scene of the bombing, minor anti government and anti Arab demonstrations erupted throughout the day.