MIDDLE EAST: A Palestinian teenager blew himself up in an open-air market in Tel Aviv yesterday, killing three people and injuring dozens.
The suicide attack came as Israel's parliament debated another part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's contentious plan to pull out of occupied Gaza in 2005, opposed by many as "a prize to Palestinian terrorism".
"A male suicide bomber blew himself up at a vegetable stall," Tel Aviv police chief David Tzur told reporters, killing four people, including himself, and injured more than 30.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a small armed group in Mr Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), claimed responsibility for the blast. Amer Abdel Rahim, a 16-year-old high school dropout from a West Bank refugee camp near Nablus, carried out the attack, the PFLP said.
The bombing posed a challenge to veteran moderates presiding over Palestinian institutions as Mr Arafat receives medical treatment in a Paris hospital. In they past, they have called for a ceasefire to revive peace moves with Israel aimed at Palestinian statehood.
The bomber struck on the eve of the US election, where a neck-and-neck race and Washington's preoccupation with Iraq have left a diplomatic vacuum in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel accuses Mr Arafat (75) of fomenting militant attacks in a 4-year-old revolt. But he denies it and phoned an aide from his hospital bed to denounce Monday's bombing, the aide said.
"He condemned the attack in Tel Aviv and said he condemns killings of civilians on both sides," Nabil Abu Rdainah said.
"Such attacks do not serve our cause amid such a difficult situation," said Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, a moderate, alluding to Mr Arafat's hospitalisation near Paris.
Mr Sharon dismissed the gestures. "The bombing proves there is no change in the Palestinian Authority (in Mr Arafat's absence)."
Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, said yesterday Mr Arafat was recovering but remained exhausted and that no grave illness has been found.
French medical sources have cautioned, however, that no ailment could be ruled out until doctors completed examinations later this week. Mr Arafat had suffered severe stomach pains and doctors initially spoke of possible leukaemia.
It was the first militant attack inside Israel since Mr Arafat was air-lifted to France last Friday. Mr Sharon's government has ruled out any return to peace talks unless Palestinian leaders disarm militants and reiterated on Sunday he foresaw no chance of this with Mr Arafat in power.
Officials in the PLO and Mr Arafat's Fatah movement have said they expect his full recovery and return to the helm.