Israel responded yesterday to the killing of 22 people by Palestinian suicide bombers with a helicopter attack, as well as barring Palestin-ians from going to a London peace parley and a Palestine Liberation Organization meeting in the West Bank.
More than 100 people were wounded in the Tel Aviv blasts that turned a crowded pedestrian mall in a foreign workers' neighborhood into a killing field on Sunday, the most serious attacks in Israel in six months.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The bombings, condemned as "terrorism" by the Palestinian Authority, came just three weeks before an election in Israel at which security concerns will be paramount for many voters, and could smooth right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bid to regain power.
Hours after two Palestinian suicide bombers detonated explosives packed with nails and bolts for more deadly effect, Israeli helicopters attacked two metal foundries in Gaza City which the army described as weapons factories.
Five people were wounded in the Israeli air raid, one of many such attacks that Israel has mounted against similar targets in a 27-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood, Palestinian officials said.
Israeli government sources said Sharon tempered a military response to the bombings to avoid upsetting US efforts to win Arab support for possible war on Iraq.
Dr. Yehuda Hiss, director of Israel's national forensic institute, said 22 people were killed by the two suicide bombers. Earlier official figures put the number at 23.
By midday yesterday, 15 of the dead had been identified. Hiss said 11 were Israelis and four were foreigners -- two Romanians, one Ghanaian and a Bulgarian.
"I prayed not to die and thought maybe God would save me because I was in the Holy Land," said John Adu, 45, a house-cleaner from Ghana who was knocked to the ground but unhurt by the two blasts, which occurred two minutes apart.
Israeli government sources said Sharon's security Cabinet decided to stop top Palestinian officials from travelling to a Jan. 14 conference in London sponsored by Britain on Middle East peace and Palestinian Authority reforms demanded by Washington.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he deplored the suicide bombings but regretted the decision to stymie talks.
"I hope very much that the Israeli government will think again," Straw told BBC Radio.
The government sources said Israel would also prevent the Palestinian Central Council (PCC) from meeting for the first time in two years on Jan. 9 to ratify a Palestinian constitution, including a clause establishing the post of prime minister.
"To prevent us from going to London means to prevent any attempt to revive the peace process and to break this vicious cycle of violence," said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet minister and peace negotiator.
"To prevent the PCC from convening means to prevent the Palestinian people's representatives from openly debating the constitution of the future Palestinian state," he said.
The meeting of one of the Palestine Liberation Organization's top bodies was to have been held in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli forces reoccupied Palestinian cities after suicide bombings in June.
The militant al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the attacks in statements on Sunday and yesterday.
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