Eye-for-an-eye bombings

Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel – Israeli warplanes attacked Palestinian security installations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Friday after a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated nail-packed explosives in a crowded pedestrian mall in Tel Aviv, killing himself and wounding 24 bystanders.

The Tel Aviv bombing came just hours after Israel killed a senior Islamic militant in a targeted missile attack in the Gaza Strip.

In reprisal for the suicide bombing, Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza City and the West Bank town of Tulkarem. The attack in Gaza City targeted the Ansar security compound next to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s seaside headquarters, Palestinian witnesses said. Power went out in much of Gaza City during the attack.

Seven people were injured in the Gaza attack, doctors said. Palestinian security officials said Israeli fighter jets also targeted positions in the northern Gaza Strip, but that the missiles landed in the sea.

In Tulkarem, F-16 warplanes fired missiles at a Palestinian government complex that had already been wrecked in a similar attack last week.

The Israeli army said in a release that Tulkarem was targeted because the attacker in Tel Aviv had come from the town.

The militant Islamic Jihad group, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv attack, identifying the bomber as 18-year-old Safwat Khalil, a vocational school student from the village of Beit Wazan near the West Bank town of Nablus. Khalil’s parents said he left home Thursday and had recently become a devout Muslim.

Just before noon, the assailant detonated explosives strapped to his body, spraying fire, nails, blood and flesh along the brick walkway near the city’s old abandoned bus station.

A suspected accomplice in the Tel Aviv attack was arrested, police said. A Kalashnikov assault rifle was found at the scene, and Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the man dropped the weapon he had meant to fire at pedestrians after the explosion went off. Israel TV said the rifle had jammed.

Thirty-one Palestinians have killed themselves in suicide bombings against Israeli targets in 16 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. In addition, there have been several suicide missions by gunmen who had no hope of surviving their attacks.