In third attack in 28 hours, Palestinian drives explosives-laden car toward nightclub

By Mark Lavie

Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel – In the third terror attack in 28 hours, a Palestinian militant drove a bomb-laden car at high speed toward a Tel Aviv night club Friday, but was shot dead by a security guard before he could set off the explosives.

The new wave of bombings – including an attempted “strategic attack” on the country’s largest fuel depot – rattled Israelis who had hoped a recent West Bank military offensive would crush Palestinian militias and bring them a period of calm.

In the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank, Palestinian militiamen opened fire on Israeli soldiers atop an armored personnel carrier, gunmen said. Troops returned fire, and four Palestinians, including a 4-year-old girl, were wounded, Palestinian doctors said. The Israeli military confirmed the exchange of fire.

Israeli troops also took up positions in the nearby town of Tulkarem and imposed a curfew. Israeli soldiers have been carrying out daily arrest raids in Palestinian areas as a follow to the military offensive that wound down last week.

Also Friday, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said general elections would be held this winter, but only after Israeli troops withdraw to positions held before fighting began in September 2000. That contradicted a statement attributed to Arafat on Thursday.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for two of the attacks – a suicide bombing Wednesday in the suburb of Rishon Letzion and Friday’s attempted car bombing.

On Thursday morning, a bomb went off under a tanker truck at Israel’s main fuel depot just outside Tel Aviv, but the blast did not ignite the huge fuel tanks and nobody was hurt. Tel Aviv Police Chief Yossi Sedbon called it a “miracle.” Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack.

The guard who shot the suspected assailant early Friday, Eli Federman, 36, told reporters he saw a car turn sharply and race toward the club. He said he opened fire and hit the man, who started falling out of the car, setting off a blast.

“Then I fired the rest of the bullets into his head,” killing him, he said. One other person, a bystander, was wounded by a fragment from the explosive, officials said.

In a leaflet faxed to The Associated Press, Al Aqsa claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the driver as Amer Shkokani, of the West Bank town of El Bireh.

In a videotaped statement, Shkokani said he was carrying out the attack to avenge the killing of Al Aqsa members by Israel. Earlier in the week, three militiamen, including a local leader from the West Bank city of Nablus, were killed in a targeted Israel tank attack.

The Rishon Letzion suicide bombing, in which two Israelis were killed, was also carried out to avenge the deaths of the militiamen killed earlier in the week, Al Aqsa said.

An official in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, David Baker, blamed Arafat for the recent violence. “The Palestinian Authority isn’t lifting a finger to prevent these attacks,” he said.

In Gaza City early Friday, witnesses said Israeli troops entered the Zeitoun neighborhood and blew up three small factories. No one was hurt, and one person was arrested, they said. The Israeli military said soldiers blew up a workshop where Palestinian militants made rockets.

The incursion followed several incidents of mortar and rocket fire at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

After the attack at the Pi Glilot fuel depot, Israelis expressed concern that Palestinians could be turning to assaults on strategic targets. The blaze underlined Israel’s vulnerability to such attacks.

Despite decades of warnings by security experts and environmentalists, the depot is still located in the middle of Israel’s most densely populated area, near Tel Aviv.

Earlier this week, Israeli security officials released details of a thwarted attempt to set off a ton of explosives under Tel Aviv’s tallest office-building complex.

“The terror organizations (have) moved to a new phase of attacks,” said Ehud Yatom, a former security official.

The bomb that exploded at the fuel depot was planted under the truck as it was parked overnight in front of the driver’s home south of Tel Aviv, Israel Radio reported, and security officers failed to spot it when the truck entered the depot.

The blast ignited diesel fuel that leaked from the tanker and incinerated the cab, but firefighters were able to put out the blaze before it spread to aboveground tanks containing millions of gallons of fuel and gas.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel’s recent military operation in the West Bank had heightened motivation among militants to carry out attacks. He said that the recent lull in attacks would not last. “We are faced with waves of suicide bombers,” he said.

On March 29, the Israeli army launched an offensive into the West Bank in response to a series of Palestinian attacks, taking over main Palestinian cities and refugee camps, fighting gunmen, making arrests, blowing up bomb factories and confiscating weapons.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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