Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Islamic extremist Hamas movement, yesterday vowed to carry out "bigger, better and greater" bomb attacks against Israel to follow recent attacks in the Israeli cities of Hadera and Netanya.
The Sheikh said that Hamas was now better prepared than in the past to mount such bombings. And in a graphic illustration of readiness to die for the cause, young Palestinian boys acted out a suicide bombing against Israel during a rally organised by Hamas's sister organisation, Islamic Jihad, in Gaza City. One boy dressed in white lay down in a coffin covered with an Israel flag; another threw a firecracker to simulate the bomb blast.
There were threats of revenge against Israel too at marches in several West Bank cities marking what had been designated another intifada "Day of Rage". In Nablus, Hamas supporters and other protesters burned Israeli flags and chanted the message to Israel's Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon that "the Palestinians are preparing your grave". Outside Ramallah, during another protest, about 15 Palestinians were hurt in clashes with Israeli troops.
The turnout at some of the marches was higher than it has been in recent weeks, when popular support for the intifada has appeared to be waning. An estimated 2,500 people, for example, joined the Nablus protest. Such renewed public activism may well stem from the blockades, which have prompted heavy international criticism of Israel and Palestinian pressure at the United Nations for the dispatch of an international protection force. All the while, furthermore, the intifada death toll continues to mount: More than 350 Palestinians have been killed since it erupted late last September - another, a 20year-old Gazan, was shot dead yesterday near the Karni junction - along with 57 Israeli Jews.
Israel slightly eased some restrictions on the Palestinians yesterday - issuing permits for some 500 Palestinian businessmen to enter Israel, and opening two border crossing points - but is maintaining the Ramallah blockade, officials say, until all members of a "terror cell" alleged to have killed eight Israelis and to have been planning a Jerusalem car-bombing earlier this week are captured. Israeli security sources claim that three captured members of the gang have identified Mr Mahmoud Demara, the Ramallah commander Mr Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard, Force 17, as the cell's co-ordinator and the supplier of its weaponry.