TEL AVIV, Israel - A Palestinian suicide bomber carrying 20 pounds of explosives blew himself up in a crowd of young Israelis waiting outside a nightclub near Tel Aviv?s beachfront promenade just before midnight Friday, killing at least four other people, wounding dozens and shattering an informal Mideast truce.
advertisement
Israeli officials indicated that the blast would not derail the tentative peace efforts. But the bombing put new pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to take action against militants who have not accepted the cease-fire he worked out at a carefully orchestrated summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Abbas held an emergency meeting with his security chiefs early Saturday and called for a joint Israel-Palestinian investigation into the bombing, which took place as about 20 to 30 people were waiting to get into the Stage nightclub on Herbert Samuel street, close to the promenade.
Bomber turned away ?I was near the club. There were about 20 people outside. Suddenly, there was an enormous explosion,? said a witness, identified only as Tsahi.
Tel Aviv police chief David Tzur said security guards outside the club spotted the bomber and didn?t allow him in. ?The impact, if he would have gone inside, would have been tragic,? he said.
He said four people were killed and dozens wounded. Israeli media said more than 50 people were wounded, many of them seriously.
There were conflicting reports of who was behind the attack. Initial reports said Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. But the group, as well as other Palestinian militant groups Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs? Brigades, all issued denials of involvement.
Palestinian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has been trying to disrupt the cease-fire, orchestrated the bombing. The Palestinian officials said they had tracked recent communications between Hezbollah militant Kais Obeid and a Palestinian who they believed was the attacker.
A Hezbollah official in Beirut denied involvement. ?As far as we are concerned, there is no need to respond to such lies that we have become used to it,? the official said. Hezbollah?s television station, Al Manar, reported that Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility.
Hezbollah has emerged as the biggest threat to the fragile Israeli-Palestinian truce, with the Iranian-funded Lebanese guerrillas offering West Bank gunmen thousands of dollars to attack Israelis. Hezbollah has hundreds of West Bank gunmen on its payroll.
Scene of devastation Israel army radio said the attacker was packed with 20 pounds of explosives. The blast ripped off the front of the nightclub, shattering windows of nearby restaurants and blackening cars. Dozens of ambulances and rescue workers pored through the scene, and police scoured the balconies of nearby buildings for evidence. Several covered bodies and a pool of blood lay on the ground.
A neighborhood shopkeeper, who identified himself only as Shlomo, said the blast was so powerful that it knocked a row of bottles off a shelf onto his head. ?Immediately we knew it was an attack. It?s a terrible feeling. We saw the people scattered all over,? he said.
The Tel Aviv promenade has been hit before by Palestinian militants, including explosions in 2001 outside the Dolphinarium disco and Mike?s Place, a popular pub.
The explosion shattered several weeks of calm. At the summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik on Feb. 8, Abbas and Sharon called for a halt in violence, pledging to break the four-year cycle of bloodshed and get peace talks back on track.
The two largest and most powerful Palestinian militant organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have so far refused to join a cease-fire officially, but have pledged to maintain the fragile calm.
Appeal to Palestinians The radical Palestinian factions are expected to hold talks with Egyptian officials next week on the cease-fire with Israel, a senior Hamas official said on condition of anonymity.
Gideon Ezra, the Israeli public security minister, called on the Palestinians ?to do much more to prevent such attacks.? But he said contacts with the Palestinians should continue.
Israel has so far welcomed Abbas? efforts to persuade militants to halt violence. But it wants the Palestinian leader to begin to take steps to dismantle militant groups.
?What we need now is action, and not words,? said Gideon Meir, a senior Foreign Ministry official.
It was the first suicide bombing since Israel and the Palestinians declared an informal cease-fire on Feb. 8 meant to end more than four years of fighting. It also was the first suicide attack since a bomber killed two people in a Tel Aviv market on Nov. 1.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, condemned the attack ?in the strongest possible terms.?
?Whoever is behind it is seriously attempting to sabotage all efforts being exerted to revive the peace process and should not be allowed to succeed,? he said.