MIDDLE EAST: A day after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed an Israeli woman and her baby granddaughter, Israeli police were again on high alert last night, especially in the Jerusalem area, having received an intelligence tip-off that at least one and possibly two bombers were heading into the city from the West Bank.
In a new US effort to mediate a way out of the conflict, both Mr George Tenet of the CIA and Mr William Burns of the US State Department are expected in the region by the weekend.
The widespread publicity given to last night's alert represented a departure from the norm: police tend not to publicise such specific warnings, with officials arguing that doing so endangers their intelligence sources, and that they can act more effectively without publicity in trying to intercept the bombers.
As roadblocks were set up all over Jerusalem, and police stepped up patrols through residential neighbourhoods, 24 of those injured in Monday's Petah Tikva bombing remained in hospital, including a toddler who is in serious condition. The two victims of the blast were named as Ruth Peled (56) and 18-month-old Sinai Kainan.
Monday's attack was carried out by 18-year-old Jihad Titi, from the Balata refugee camp, a member of the Al-Aksa Brigades, which are affiliated to President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO.
The bomber was a cousin of the local leader of the brigades, Mahmoud Titi, alleged by Israel to have orchestrated a number of attacks on Israeli targets, who was killed last week in what Israel called a "targeted strike" - hit by a tank shell as he and two other members of the brigades, also killed, were meeting in Balata cemetery. The bomber's brother, Munir, is paralysed after being hit by shrapnel from an Israel shell last month, the family says.
Jihad Titi's mother, Haleema, said he had vowed days ago to "avenge" Mahmoud's death, and telephoned her shortly before carrying out the bombing. After crying a little, she told him: "I hope your operation will succeed." His father, Ibrahim, said he had hoped "my son would be a nuclear bomb to destroy everything. If we are not able to live, we don't want the others (the Israelis) to live."
Mr Danny Rubinstein, a Palestinian affairs analyst for the left-wing Ha'aretz daily, wrote yesterday that Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority is currently engaged in its "broadest" media campaign against such bombings since the intifada began in September 2000. "It is difficult to accept the claims of many in Israel that Arafat and his men are following a two-faced policy and are actually encouraging suicide attacks," he wrote. "It is more reasonable to assume that the Palestinian leadership does not actually have the power" to stop them.
Aides to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, rejected this analysis, however, accusing the Palestinian Authority of fostering a climate of profound hostility to Israel. But if Mr Arafat was genuinely unable to thwart the attacks, most of which had lately been carried out by his own purported loyalists, said one aide, "then let him resign" and allow a more capable leader to replace him.
The Israeli army, meanwhile, is continuing to raid various Palestinian cities, searching house-to-house for bombing suspects, and making numerous arrests. Before dawn, troops entered Jenin - where a Palestinian man was killed in the course of a gun-battle - and arrested the new Hamas leader there. They also made arrests outside Qalkilya, in Hebron and in the Bethlehem area, where army sources said a man was seized with an explosive device.
The Palestinian governor of East Jerusalem, Mr Jamil Nasser, was arrested yesterday by Israeli police and secret service agents, a Palestinian official said. Mr Nasser was visiting the offices of the PLO political commissioner for Jerusalem affairs, Mr Sari Nusseibeh, in the occupied east of the city when he was taken away, the official said.