Gaza Explosion Kills Three

Three members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas were killed Thursday in a blast that appeared to have been caused by a bomb that went off prematurely.

Another six people were injured in the blast, which occurred in the garage of a house in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood. Two of the wounded, also Hamas members, were in serious condition, medical officials said. Among the wounded was a 75-year-old man and a 10-year-old girl, the daughter of a Hamas militant.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a senior Hamas official, said the cause of the blast was being investigated and "it may have been an internal explosion" - meaning it was not caused by Israel.

An Israeli army spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the army had no connection and that troops at a nearby lookout post witnessed the blast.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tried to rebuild a government left in shambles by the departure of the center-left Labor Party, and was expected to court ultra-nationalists opposed to any peace deal with the Palestinians.

Sharon's efforts do not bode well for ending two years of conflict, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger, because the hawks Sharon is courting support expanding Jewish settlements and tougher military action against the Palestinians. By contrast, ministers from the dovish Labor had a moderating influence on the government before they resigned.

Palestinian officials say they fear a government stacked with hardliners will adopt even tougher policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

After Labor quit Wednesday because of a dispute over funding for Jewish settlements in the 2003 state budget, Sharon was left with a minority government that controls only 55 seats in the 120-member parliament.

The opposition might not muster 61 legislators needed to topple the government, but it will become increasingly difficult for Sharon to govern.

"Sharon ... will now learn what coalition hell looks like, with all the demands, the blackmail and the threats," wrote commentator Shalom Yerushalmi in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

Despite the unstable situation, Sharon was quoted as saying Thursday he would not seek elections ahead of the scheduled date — November 2003.

"I plan to make every effort to establish an alternative government," Sharon told Yediot. "I have no intention of ... initiating early elections."

The main target of Sharon's efforts is National Union-Israel Beitenu, a far-right grouping of seven legislators who oppose any negotiations with the Palestinians and advocate settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Israeli daily Maariv reported that Sharon has offered the faction's leader, Avigdor Lieberman, the post of foreign or finance minister. However, the report could not be confirmed independently. A legislator from the National Union, Benny Elon, said he was unaware of such an offer.

Elon said the final decision was up to the faction. Elon said National Union legislators would meet with Sharon envoys in the coming days. He said Sharon should be urged to adopt a more hard-line government platform, which he said would be more in line with the prime minister's right-wing convictions.

"We want to see if he (Sharon) is willing now to use this year to have a clear policy," including harsher measures in the West Bank, Elon told AP.

Sharon offered the defense portfolio vacated by Labor leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer to former army chief Shaul Mofaz, who led large-scale offensives against Palestinian militants and advocated the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Mofaz left the army in July when his four-year term was up.

A Sharon aide, Arnon Perlman, said Thursday that Mofaz has accepted the defense post. Mofaz returned to Israel Wednesday from a trip abroad.

Sharon asked outgoing Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to stay on, said Labor legislator Collette Avital. However, Peres advisers said he would in principle not break with his party. The Yediot Ahronot daily said Sharon wanted Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to serve as a special envoy and represent Israel abroad.

Serving as a counterweight to Sharon's hawkish views, the respected Peres had helped deflect some of the international criticism of Israel.

Sharon's next test will come Monday when parliament votes on a number of no-confidence motions. In the same session, the Mofaz appointment reportedly will be submitted for approval.

Ben-Eliezer, meanwhile, came under intense criticism Thursday for having broken up the 20-month-old "national unity" government over $145 million in allocations to Jewish settlements. The disputed sum amounts to only 0.3 percent of the entire 2003 spending plan of $57 billion.

Arafat adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Israel's government has not been a partner for peace, even with Labor in it, and that a narrow coalition would even be worse.

"The behavior of such a government will reflect negatively on the Middle East, and the United States should also be worried about dealing with a right-wing government in Israel because it is going to endanger the American interests in the region," Abu Rdeneh said.

The upheaval spells trouble for U.S. efforts to win support for a three-phase peace plan envisioning a provisional Palestinian state by 2003. Elections would mean a delay of many months, and Sharon's far-right partners in a narrow coalition likely would object to many of that plan's provisions, such as a settlement freeze and a significant Israeli troop pullback.

In the West Bank, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at an Israeli army vehicle near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, wounding one soldier before being shot and killed by an officer in the vehicle.

An officer identified as Maj. Idan said he shot the attacker after coming under fire and that the gunman used an olive grove as cover to open fire on the vehicle as it passed. Due to army regulations, he only give his first name.

In nearby Nablus, about 1,000 people gathered for the funeral of Ayed Mansour, a Palestinian intelligence officer killed a day earlier under disputed circumstances.

Palestinian officials said Mansour - a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement - was shot from two directions by Israeli troops lying in ambush as he stepped from his car in the village of Kalil near Nablus. Israel's military denied knowledge of the incident.

In the West Bank town of Jenin, meanwhile, Israeli troops demolished four family homes of Palestinian militants Thursday, bringing to nine the number of houses Israel has destroyed in the city's refugee camp in the past week.

Two of the houses destroyed in Jenin on Thursday belonged to suicide bombers and two belonged to suspected militants wanted by Israel, the military said.

Since early summer, Israel's military has destroyed dozens of homes belonging to the families of Palestinian terror suspects, arguing the policy dissuades other Palestinians from launching attacks. Human rights groups have criticized the demolitions and
Palestinians view them as collective punishment.

The army said one of the suicide bombers whose house was destroyed helped slam a car packed with explosives into a bus in northern Israel last week, killing 14 people. Israeli troops occupied Jenin after that attack.

One of the militants was in a car full of gunmen who fired on a bus stop in the coastal Israeli town of Hadera last year, killing four people; he was shot and killed in the attack.

At least 50 people were made homeless by the demolitions, Palestinian witnesses said.

Troops have been conducting house-to-house searches for militants and arresting Palestinian suspects in Jenin, and the town was under curfew for six straight days until the army first let people out of their homes Wednesday.