PALESTINE: A Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and the Israeli security guard who prevented him from entering a crowded railway station yesterday, in an attack which underlined the uphill struggle against such bombers faced by the incoming Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, writes David Horovitz in Jerusalem.
Later yesterday, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians outside Ramallah - a teenager who was one of several youngsters stoning the soldiers, and a taxi-driver who was passing by.
Mr Abbas has won grudging approval from the PA's President, Mr Yasser Arafat, for a new government which he has said would seek to halt the suicide bombings. That is strenuously opposed not only by the Islamic extremists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which openly call for Israel's destruction, but by the Arafat-loyalist al-Aqsa Brigades, which claimed responsibility for yesterday's blast.
The bomber, Ahmed Khatib (18), lived barely a mile from the Kfar Sava railway station where he detonated his explosives. He was a keen supporter of al-Aqsa, his uncle said.
If the first suicide bombing in a month was timed to highlight the opposition by various Palestinian extremist groups to any intifada crackdown, the Israeli army said it had thwarted another such attack yesterday afternoon. Two members of Islamic Jihad were intercepted in a car outside Tulkarm, with an assault rifle and ammunition, en route to Israel, the army said.
Israeli officials said they had intercepted seven suicide bombers in the past week alone.
Mr Arafat enjoys far more popularity than does Mr Abbas, whose incoming government is widely seen and reviled as an instrument of American and Israeli influence.