TEL AVIV – The military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization today carried out a suicide bombing in Israel, killing a woman and injuring 11 others, including at least one person in critical condition.
"We will keep attacking both in Israel and in West Bank. Attacks don't go against [Abbas'] negotiations. We need both tracks, negotiations and martyrdom attacks, in order to achieve our goal of liberating our lands," Abu Ahmed, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern Gaza Strip, told WND shortly after the bombing.
Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took credit for the attack along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose founder, George Habash, died last weekend of a heart attack.
During today's operation, one suicide bomber blew himself up in the southern Israeli Negev town of Dimona. Negev Police Chief Yossi Porianta told reporters a second suicide bomber was set to detonate his explosives, but he was knocked away by the blast of the first bomb. Upon noticing the second bomber, security forces at the scene shot him at point blank.
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One of the bombers was identified as Mussa Arafat, a PFLP terrorist from the Gaza city of Khan Younis. The second bomber was Lawai Lawani, an Al Aqsa Brigades member from Gaza's Sabra neighborhood.
According to terrorist sources speaking to WND from Gaza, a third bomber is still inside Israel with his suicide belt.
Dimona is the site of Israel's nuclear reactor. The explosion took place about four miles from the reactor site.
The suicide bombers had crossed into Israel from Egypt after Gaza-based militants 12 days ago blew up the Gaza-Egypt border wall and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians streamed into the Egyptian Sinai desert, according to Israeli security sources and Al Aqsa Brigades leaders speaking to WND. Israel has a long border with Egypt, much of which is unprotected.
Yuval Diskin, chief of Israel's Shin Bet Security Services, warned during a speech to the Knesset yesterday some Palestinian terrorists who crossed into the Egyptian Sinai desert the past two weeks relocated themselves to form terror cells in strategic areas bordering Egypt.
The Shin Bet chief said Israeli intelligence is aware of at least 20 specific locations on the Israel-Egypt border currently in use by Palestinian terrorists in attempts to infiltrate the Jewish state to carry out attacks. He said security has been boosted at those locations, but he stressed the need for Israel to immediate construct a security fence along the entire Israel-Egypt border.
Today's bombing was the latest in a string of attacks carried out by members of Abbas' Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, many of whom received amnesty from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in June in a move meant to bolster Abbas against Hamas.
One week ago, following peace talks between Abbas and Olmert, Brigades leaders called WND to take credit for two simultaneous terror attacks in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Terrorists fired on Israelis at the entrance to the Shoafat refugee camp north of Jerusalem, killing one and injuring another. At the same time, two terrorists stabbed two Israelis at the settlement of Kfar Etzion. The terrorists were shot and killed.
Two weeks ago, the Brigades took credit for a shooting attack against an Israeli motorist near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
That attack followed a visit to the region earlier this month by President Bush in which the U.S. leader termed Abbas a "negotiating partner" and urged Israel to create a Palestinian state before the end of the year.
Senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met the past few days to further the negotiations started at November's U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit. Olmert and Abbas are scheduled to meet again this week.
Even with negotiations at full pace, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has been quite active.
WND reported that days before Abbas' departed to the Annapolis meeting, the Brigades took credit for a West Bank shooting attack that killed Israeli civilian Ido Zoldan.
The Israel Defense Forces waited for two weeks – until after the Annapolis summit – before releasing for publication an announcement that Israeli security agents caught the culprits of the Zoldan murder immediately following the attack. The culprits were a cell of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades whose members double as paid police officers for Abbas' Fatah organization.
Then, last month, four armed Palestinians driving a jeep killed off-duty Israeli soldiers Ahikam Amihai and David Rubin as they were hiking with a woman just outside Hebron. Amihai and Rubin, both in their early 20s, managed to return fire before they died, reportedly killing one of the terrorists and injuring another. Their female companion was uninjured.
Immediately after the attack, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility during a news conference from the Gaza Strip and in a WND interview. Nevertheless, most major Israeli daily newspapers and television networks reported Hamas carried out the killings. Later, Israel's Shin Bet Security Services announced the two main culprits in the attack were members of Fatah's security forces and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Abu Ahmed, the Brigades leader in Gaza, said today's suicide bombings "are part of a wave of attacks coinciding with negotiations that will continue."
To interview Aaron Klein, contact M. Sliwa Public Relations by e-mail, or call 973-272-2861.
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