Netanya, Israel – An Israeli security guard prevented a Palestinian suicide bomber from entering a busy shopping mall in this seaside town on Monday, but the bomber still detonated his explosives, killing five people and injuring dozens, Israeli police said.
Soon afterward, Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, called an emergency meeting of senior Israeli security officials to plot a response. There was no official word on the Israeli plans, but the Israeli media, citing military sources, said a large-scale operation in the West Bank was possible.
The attack marked the third time since 2001 that a Palestinian bomber has struck in precisely the same place – just outside the main entrance to the Sharon mall in Netanya. The bombers have been unable to get past security guards and enter the mall, where casualties could have been much higher. Still, the three bombings, which included attacks in May 2001 and July 18 of this year, have killed a total of 15 people.
The Israelis and the Palestinians are preparing for parliamentary elections early next year, and with the focus on domestic politics, the overall level of violence has been relatively low in recent weeks.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing, calling it retaliation for the killings and arrests of members of its group by Israeli forces. Islamic Jihad has carried out all four suicide bombings this year in which Israelis were killed, and the bombers all came from villages just a few miles apart in the northern West Bank.
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the bombing as a “terrorist attack” and said in a statement that it “causes the most serious harm to our commitment to the peace process, and the Palestinian Authority will not go easy on whoever is proved to be responsible.” But Israel says the Palestinians have repeatedly failed to prevent such attacks or punish those responsible.
“The Palestinian Authority refuses to take even the most minimal steps to dismantle the terrorist organizations, and we saw the results of that lack of action in Netanya Monday,” said David Baker, an official in the prime minister’s office.
The force of the blast was evident from the blood that was smeared high and wide across the mall’s stone wall in at least a dozen places. Panels of blue reflective glass on the facade shattered and came crashing down on the sidewalk.