Suspected Bomber Injured by Blast in Israeli Market

JERUSALEM —  An explosion Friday in an outdoor Jerusalem marketplace filled with shoppers seriously wounded a man who witnesses said was trying to plant a bomb under a car.

It was the third attempted attack on Israelis since Tuesday and followed the stabbing Thursday of an Israeli truck driver in the occupied Gaza Strip. The army announced that two young Palestinians have confessed to the stabbing.

Armed Jewish vigilantes have started patrolling Arab towns in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in response to the wave of guerrilla attacks that have killed at least 13 Israelis this year. Shootings and stabbings have replaced the street riots previously common in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River and Gaza Strip seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.

Newspaper photographs of groups of settlers carrying assault rifles and submachine guns on West Bank streets prompted the army to issue a statement Friday saying it is responsible for security. Vigilantes were reported in the towns of Nablus and Ramallah, and a Jewish settlers’ organization in the Gaza Strip said it plans similar patrols.

Army Hasn’t Intervened

An army spokeswoman said settlers would not be allowed to take the law into their own hands, but so far the military has not intervened to stop the patrols.

Military officials described the vigilantes’ action as a publicity stunt to draw attention to settlers’ demands for tougher security measures. They pointed out that settlers are allowed to carry weapons in the West Bank.

Friday’s blast occurred about noon near the office of New York-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, an anti-Arab militant who is currently in the United States. Dozens of his supporters rallied in the streets shouting, “Arabs out!” before they were dispersed by police.

Witnesses said some of the demonstrators attempted to attack the wounded suspect as he was being treated by an ambulance crew. Police pushed the crowd back and a plainclothesman fired a pistol in the air to disperse the demonstrators.

Police spokesman Rafi Levi said that police “presumed the explosion was the work of terrorists.” He described the bomb as a “medium-sized package of dynamite” and said 20 Arab suspects were arrested.

Levi said only one person was wounded by the explosion at Mahane Yehuda market, but he refused to elaborate.

‘Blew Up in His Face’

An ambulance attendant who treated the wounded man told the Associated Press that the victim was “the terrorist himself. The device blew up in his face.”

A policeman who declined to give his name said “the explosion occurred when the terrorist tried to put the bomb either near or under the car.”

The attacks have persisted despite a government crackdown on Palestinians that began last month, including four deportation orders and 68 jail sentences without trial. Three of the expulsion orders were appealed to the Supreme Court.

Two Palestinians were arrested Friday morning in the stabbing of the truck driver, and the military command said they had admitted the attack. It said soldiers tore down the suspects’ tar-paper shacks at the Rafiah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.