Bomb Explodes At Palestinian School

A bomb exploded in a Palestinian elementary school in the West Bank on Tuesday, slightly wounding five students, Palestinian officials and Israeli military sources said.

Police said they were investigating the explosion at the school, which is in an area under full Israeli security control south of the West Bank city of Hebron, but did not have any leads so far.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops raided a refugee camp and destroyed what the army said were machines for making weapons.

The explosion went off near a water cooler in the courtyard of the Ziff secondary school south of Hebron, said the principal, Yousef Abed Rabbo. Nearly all 380 students were in class at the time.

Army sappers were called in and detonated a second device in a controlled explosion.

There was no claim of responsibility for Tuesday's incident. The principal said he believed Israeli militants planted the explosives.

Earlier this year, police uncovered a plot by extremists to plant a car bomb near a Palestinian school in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem. In March, a bomb went off in another Palestinian school in east Jerusalem, injuring a teacher and four children. Jewish militants claimed responsibility for that attack.

At least 1,542 Palestinians and 591 Israelis have been killed in violence since the Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation in September 2000.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops have been carrying out almost nightly raids of Palestinian neighborhoods, searching for wanted militants and weapons workshops.

Tuesday's target was the Khan Younis refugee camp. In a five-hour sweep, the army said it arrested 23 suspected militants and destroyed nine machines used for making weapons.

Palestinian security officials said soldiers searched about 60 houses. They said soldiers destroyed two metal workshops and damaged a car garage and several textile and plastics factories.

Troops also blew up the two-story house of Yousef Egha, whose son, a Hamas activist, was killed eight months ago during an attack on an Israeli settlement near Khan Younis, the Palestinian officials said. Sixteen people were left homeless, the officials said.

The raid came hours after Israeli troops shot dead an Egyptian citizen in Gaza. The militant group Islamic Jihad said in a statement Tuesday that the man, whom it identified as Abdel Fatah Ali, had arrived in Gaza six months ago to fight against Israel's occupation.

The army, which has stepped up raids in Gaza while enforcing curfews in West Bank cities, said its forces had demolished nine foundries used to manufacture makeshift bombs, rockets and ammunition, and detained 23 people linked to militant groups.

"You have to know that anyone who provides assistance or cooperates with these terrorists in any way will pay a dear price," it said in a leaflet distributed by troops.

The leaflet blamed the tough conditions in Gaza on "terrorist attacks" launched from the area.

The owners of the workshops denied the buildings had secretly been used to make weapons.

"They came in tanks and bulldozers, they called to us though megaphones to come out of the house and then they threw explosives into it and destroyed it," said 50-year-old Ramez al-Fara, standing by his demolished tractor repair workshop.

Another of the workshop owners, Mahmoud al-Astal, told Reuters his foundry "had nothing to do with acts of violence."

Despite the ongoing violence, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said there were signs that a breakthrough with the Palestinians was possible after two years of fighting. He cited the Palestinian legislature's move last week to force Yasser Arafat's Cabinet to resign and a decision by a militia affiliated with Arafat's Fatah faction to halt attacks inside Israel.

"If we see that there is a change in the situation, we will welcome it," Peres told Israel Radio in an interview from New York, before his meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday that Israel cannot trust its neighbors to carry out agreements. He said the last two years of fighting may have been avoided if Israel had insisted from the start that the Palestinian Authority fulfill interim peace accords.

Each side has accused the other of repeatedly violating the agreements, under which Israel withdrew from Palestinian population center. Palestinians say Israel violated the spirit of the accords by expanding Jewish settlements. Israel says the Palestinians broke a promise to try to prevent attacks on Israelis.

Also Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned Lebanon against going ahead with plans to divert waters from a river system in southern Lebanon that flows northward into Israel's largest water reserve, the Sea of Galilee. Peres said he would raise the issue in his talks with Powell.