Ezzedin al-Qassam, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has claimed responsibility for the weekend bombing in Israel which killed three Israelis and the bomber.
"We said that 10 'kamikazes' of the Ezzdin al-Qassam group wereready for martyrdom in heroic operations, and we kept our promise on Sunday. The hero and martyr Ahmad Omar Alian, 23, was the first hero," said a statement.
Ezzedin al-Qassam, which has conducted a bombing campaignagainst Israel since the 1993 Oslo peace accords, had vowed to greet incoming Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a series of attacks when he takes office.
It said it has "more than 10 suicide bombers ready to strike the Zionist entity."The bomber blew himself up in the middle of rush-hour crowds in theIsraeli coastal resort of Netanya on Sunday, killing three otherpeople and injuring dozens more, in an attack that Israel’s Prime Minister elect Mr Ariel Sharon blamed on Mr Yasser Arafat'sPalestinian Authority for releasing militants fromits jails.
The armed wing of Hamas, which strongly opposes the peaceprocess between the Israelis and the Palestinians, has claimed mostof thebomb and other attacks in Israel that have been carried outsince 1994.
AFP