As Palestinians and Israelis awaited a statement by Bush concerning Palestinian statehood, a new wave of violence swept through the occupied territories. Khaled Amayreh reports from Jerusalem Click to view caption Less than 12 hours after Israeli troops assassinated a prominent Fatah activist near Bethlehem, a Palestinian man blew himself up aboard a bus carrying Jewish settlers south of Jerusalem. The blast reduced the bus to a mass of charred and twisted metal, killed the bomber and at least 20 settlers. Several other settlers were also injured, some seriously. The attack took place on 18 June near the West Bank settlement of Gilo, built on confiscated Palestinian land belonging to the nearby Palestinian town of Beit Jala. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the suicide bomber as 22-year-old Mohamed Hazza Al-Ghoul of the Fari'a refugee camp near Jenin, a frequent target of Israeli attacks. Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups, including Fatah, view Jewish settlements and settlers as a legitimate target of resistance attacks. This consensus contrasts with the diverging views among such forces with respect to attacks on civilian targets within Israel proper. A few hours after the Gilo attack, Israeli commandos assassinated a militant of the radical Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad in the West Bank city of Hebron. Youssef Bisharat, 22, was gunned down in his car at an army roadblock at the northern entrance to Hebron, said an Islamic Jihad spokesman, who added that Bisharat was a member of his group. The Palestinian Authority (PA) strongly condemned the bombing near Gilo, saying it harmed the Palestinian cause. A PA spokesman also accused "the perpetrators" of seeking to damage the image of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and criticised the timing of the move which came just before Bush was expected to make a statement on the Middle East. However, the PA rejected Israeli calls to hold the authority responsible for the attack, arguing that Israel, not the PA, was accountable since the Israeli army controls the entirety of the West Bank. Following the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli officials visited the site of the blast, vowing to respond "swiftly and strongly". Surrounded by bodyguards, Sharon said, "We have got to fight, and that is what we will do." Moreover, Sharon took advantage of the occasion to question the proposed creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders. "What state are they talking about? You see, it is a state of terror and murder," said an angry Sharon who had earlier categorically rejected Palestinian statehood. It is widely anticipated that the Israeli army will launch extensive raids on Palestinian towns, including Ramallah, where the PA headquarters are located, in retaliation for the bombing. The bombing is also expected to strengthen voices in the Israeli government calling for the ousting or even assassination of the Palestinian leader. The attack on the bus was not an isolated incident of violence, but rather followed within a few days of the Israeli army's killing of more than 20 Palestinians, including a number of civilians. Moreover, Israeli occupation troops are continuing to carry out daily incursions into Palestinian towns during which homes and civilian infrastructure were demolished and civilians were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the resistance. The daily incursions, along with the blockades imposed on nearly all Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, are having a devastating impact on all aspects of Palestinian life. Movement by private vehicle, taxi or public transport has become so restricted that many Palestinians have been forced to walk or ride donkeys long distances or across rugged terrain as they try to move among villages and towns. The punitive restrictions are also having a radicalising effect on the Palestinian people, with an increasing number of Palestinians supporting suicide attacks against Israel. On 15 June, Israeli tanks, armoured personnel carriers and jeeps swept through Jenin, demolishing some homes and imposing a curfew. Several similar "sweeps" took place in Tulkarm and Hebron and adjoining villages and hamlets this week, disrupting all aspects of daily life in these localities. Also on 15 June, two Israeli occupation soldiers were killed and four others wounded in a resistance attack on the Jewish settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip. One Hamas fighter was also killed in the attack, which occurred less than 24 hours after Israeli occupation troops killed five members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of Fatah, in the same area. On 16 June, Israeli army bulldozers demolished an oxygen-producing factory near the Shujaiyya crossing, east of Gaza City. The factory was the only source of oxygen supplies for several hospitals and clinics in the Gaza Strip. Earlier that day, Israeli bulldozers destroyed additional Palestinian homes in Rafah in southern Gaza and in Sur Baher and Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem. Tuesday's attack claimed by Hamas also came as the Israeli army continued work on a controversial "security fence" in the northern West Bank. The line of the fence seems to have very little to do with the actual border between Israel proper and the West Bank, the presumed future border between Israel and the prospective Palestinian state. This suggests that the real aim of the fence is to annex large chunks of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1967. It also means that as many as 300,000 Palestinians will be separated by the fence from their brethren in the West Bank. Many of those Palestinians, especially tens of thousands of villagers in the northern part of the West Bank, are likely to find themselves cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the fence, and unable to enter Israel because they are barred from doing so. The PA condemned the planned fence, with PA Chairman Yasser Arafat calling it a "repugnant expression of fascism and apartheid". The United States and Egypt also criticised the fence, but given the Sharon government's intransigence on virtually all matters it seems unlikely that it will make any moves to halt work on the structure.
