Suicide Bombers' Homes Bulldozed
Israeli army bulldozers demolished the family homes of two Palestinian suicide bombers on Thursday, one day after an Israeli policeman was killed in the first Palestinian suicide bombing in six weeks.
In new violence, Palestinian hospital officials said a 10-year-old boy had been found dead with a chest wound in the West Bank town of al-Bireh after witnesses reported Israeli army gunfire in the area. The army did not immediately comment.
In the town of Abu Dis on the outskirts of East Jerusalem, the army demolished the homes of two Palestinian youths who blew themselves up in rapid succession in central Jerusalem last December, killing 11 people.
Israel says such demolitions are intended to deter further attacks in the two-year-old uprising against Israeli occupation. But violence has continued, and the end of the six-week lull has raised fears in Israel that it may face a new wave of attacks.
"The Israeli fatalities were an unfortunate coincidence rather than a new terror wave," an Israeli security source said, referring to the suicide bombing in northern Israel and two other incidents in which Israelis were killed on Wednesday.
Despite the bloodshed, the security source said: "There is no change planned for our military measures."
In one of the worst days of violence in recent weeks, Israeli soldiers also shot dead a Palestinian on Wednesday, saying they suspected him of planning an attack.
The army said it had arrested seven suspected militants overnight.
Palestinian officials have denounced Israel's measures against militants and their families as collective punishment.
Witnesses in the West Bank city of Jenin said the army also razed the home of a family of which two members were killed in an Israeli anti-militant sweep in April.
The army said it knew of no deliberate demolition, but that its forces had blown up explosives found overnight in a house in the Jenin refugee camp.
In Wednesday's suicide bombing, a Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop in the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel, killing an Israeli policeman.
Islamic Jihad, a group dedicated to Israel's destruction, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its website.
The White House called the suicide bombing "one step backward," but spokesman Ari Fleischer reaffirmed the U.S. goal of Palestinian statehood. He said U.S. President George W. Bush hoped "we can get back to the path of slow, quiet progress in the Middle East."
President Bush has said Israel must eventually end its 35-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and dismantle Jewish settlements there.
He says Palestinians must reform institutions and choose leaders "not compromised by terror" - a reference to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
At least 1,544 Palestinians and 594 Israelis have died in the violence that erupted in September 2000.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said this week that "performance and hope" were needed to press ahead with new peace proposals outlined by mediators from the United Nations, United States, Russia and the European Union, the so-called "Quartet."
But prospects of a breakthrough appear dim, with rhetoric at the U.N. mirroring the latest violence.
Addressing the General Assembly Wednesday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud accused Israel of using terror "to implement its policies of expansionism and settlement."
Speaking from the same podium, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that peace could still be achieved, but renewed terror attacks on Israel have stood in the way of the Palestinian goal of Israel giving up control of the West Bank and Gaza.
"Terror postponed their destiny. Terror postponed our willingness to end control over their lives," Peres told the U.N. delegates, referring to the people of the West Bank and Gaza.