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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: March 3, 2005 |
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A car bomb exploded early Thursday near a Jewish shrine in the West Bank as hundreds of Israeli worshippers prayed there, causing no injuries, but damaging nearby Palestinian homes and underscoring the vulnerability of the Mideast truce declared last month.
It was not clear whether the explosives went off prematurely, or whether the Joseph's Tomb shrine was even the target; the blast went off several hundred meters (yards) from the shrine, located on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Nablus.
The explosion blew out apartment and car windows and scorched storefronts. The tangled car wreck was still on the street Thursday morning. There was no claim of responsibility.
Joseph's Tomb has been one of the flashpoints of fighting in the past four years of violence. At the start of the Palestinian uprising, Israeli troops withdrew from the enclave which was largely destroyed by Palestinian militants. Since then, the Israeli military has barred Jewish worshippers, except for special visits under army protection.
In Israel, Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Thursday that the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas is making progess toward imposing order -- despite the Nablus bomb, last week's Tel Aviv suicide bombing and other attempts by Palestinian militants to torpedo the truce.
Peres met Wednesday night in Tel Aviv with Palestinian Cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan for talks on economic issues, the first high-level meeting between the sides since the nightclub bombing which killed five Israelis last Friday. That attack was claimed by the militant Islamic Jihad, operating from the northern West Bank.
"There is a change, a deep change and some of the things the Palestinians have done are worthy of praise," Peres told Israel Army Radio, giving as one example the deployment of Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip to prevent the firing of locally made Qassam rockets at Israeli targets.
"There is relative calm. Certainly there are people trying to destroy peace efforts, that doesn't surprise me," he said.
Israeli security officials say Palestinian security forces have arrested several Islamic Jihad activist since the Tel Aviv bombing. Overnight, Israeli troops arrested four more members of the group.
Peres said he discussed with Dahlan the possibility of Israel handing over 1,000 acres of greenhouses in Gaza settlements to the Palestinians after its planned withdrawal in the summer, but the Palestinians were still considering their position.
Yonatan Bassi, the senior Israeli official overseeing the withdrawal, said Wednesday that peppers and tomatoes grown in the greenhouses could help feed the 1.3 million Palestinians packed into the narrow coastal strip. Luxury items such as flowers and strawberries would be exported, mainly to the European Union.
"Israel is negotiating now with America and with others, with the international community, to leave all the infrastructure of the greenhouses to the Palestinians through a third party," Bassi said, without giving further details. |
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