MIDDLE EAST: A six-week hiatus in suicide bombings was shattered yesterday when a Palestinian blew himself up in Israel after being stopped by a police patrol acting on a tip-off. The bomber killed a policeman and himself, and injured three others.
The resurgence of violence came on a day in which President Yasser Arafat, who has become increasingly isolated on the diplomatic front, received a "courtesy call" from the Irish Defence Minister.
Two other Israelis were also killed in attacks yesterday in the West Bank, with one being shot in an ambush near Jenin, for which the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia associated with Mr Arafat's Fatah party, claimed responsibility.
The charred body of a second Israeli man, aged 67, who had been shot in the head, was found in a garbage dump outside the West Bank village of Al Azaria, just east of Jerusalem, where he had apparently gone to buy building materials.
Two Palestinians were also killed in the West Bank, one apparently for collaborating with Israel. A second man was killed by Israeli troops, who opened fire on his car near Jenin after they said he had tried to run them over.
Police said the suicide bomber blew himself up after he was approached by officers acting on information received about a suspicious man at a bus stop.The suicide attack yesterday was the first since a bomber from the Hamas group blew himself up on a bus in Israel on August 4th, killing nine passengers.
Most Israeli observers have put the dwindling violence down to the ongoing, intensive military action in the West Bank, where the Israeli army has reconquered large swathes of Palestinian-controlled territory since June, and has been conducting daily raids and arrests of militants in an attempt to thwart attacks.
But the tapering off of violence in the last six weeks, some observers point out, is also partly the result of a decision by Fatah leaders to limit armed attacks. The movement appears to be in the throes of reassessing its strategy after two years of armed resistance.
Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, writes:
During his meeting with Mr Arafat, the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, was accompanied by the Chief-of-Staff, Lieut Gen Colm Mangan, and the Secretary General of his Department, Mr David O'Callaghan.
"President Arafat outlined the difficult situation which the current Israeli occupation was having on his administration and on the Palestinian people," a Department of Defence statement said. "The Minister expressed the support of the Irish Government for the Palestinian people at this difficult time."
Mr Smith also met his Israeli counterpart, Mr Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. The Minister was in Israel and the West Bank to visit Irish soldiers serving with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation, whose chief-of-staff is Maj Gen Carl Dodd, of the Irish Defence Forces.