Suicide Attacker Kills 3 at West Bank Checkpoint

JERUSALEM —  A Palestinian suicide bomber reportedly intent on attacking a crowded Hanukkah gathering detonated his payload of explosives when Israeli troops stopped him at a West Bank checkpoint Thursday. An army lieutenant and two Palestinians were killed along with the bomber.

The powerful explosion at an impromptu roadblock near the town of Tulkarm injured nine other people, six of them soldiers and three of them Palestinian bystanders, Israeli authorities said. One of the wounded soldiers was in grave condition, the military said in a statement.

Israeli and Palestinian officials alike condemned the attack, with Israel calling it proof that the country risks lethal consequences if it eases tight military restrictions on Palestinians’ movement in the West Bank.

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was responsible for the bombing, according to Arabic-language media reports and an official of the group in the Gaza Strip. But West Bank leaders of Islamic Jihad, who are targeted for arrest and assassination by Israeli forces, were uncharacteristically silent.

Islamic Jihad has been responsible for most of the suicide bombings against Israelis this year, having spurned an informal cease-fire that rival groups such as Hamas have largely respected for some months now.

“These suicide bombers were on their way to perpetrate an attack against Israelis while they were celebrating Hanukkah,” said David Baker, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office. “This is another vivid example of the total disinterest shown by the Palestinian Authority in taking any discernible measures to prevent terrorism against Israelis.”

The Israeli military identified the two Palestinians who were killed as the driver of the bomber’s taxi and a passenger. The men’s possible role in the bombing was being investigated, an army statement said.

Another Palestinian passenger, who said he unwittingly rode with the bomber, told Reuters news agency that Israeli troops at the checkpoint set up near Tulkarm ordered the young man out of the car and told him to open his bulky overcoat.

“He got out slowly, fastened his jacket and blew himself up,” said the witness, Nafez Shahin.

Israeli security forces had received specific intelligence warnings that a bomber was en route to an attack, most likely in the Tel Aviv area, and if possible at a crowded holiday gathering. Israelis are holding pageants and parties this week to celebrate the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

“A major disaster was averted,” Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said. He blamed Islamic Jihad’s leadership in Syria for orchestrating the attack.

In the wake of the bombing, Israeli troops sealed off Tulkarm and conducted house-to-house searches.

Incidents such as this one illustrate the dilemmas faced by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who this week met with representatives of several militant groups, trying unsuccessfully to win an agreement to extend the informal truce.

Israel as a rule blames Abbas’ government whenever militant groups mount an attack, and the Palestinian leader’s standing among his own people tends to plummet when Israel retaliates. Usually the beneficiary of the popular resentment is Hamas, which is expected to make a strong showing in parliamentary elections next month.

Israeli forces continued Thursday to enforce a “no-go” zone in the northern Gaza Strip, set up a day earlier in response to rocket fire by Palestinian militants.

Israeli troops have been firing artillery rounds into the mainly uninhabited area at Gaza’s northernmost tip, and have dropped leaflets ordering residents to stay out of the area.

Palestinians called the creation of the buffer zone tantamount to a reoccupation of the seaside territory, from which Israel withdrew troops and Jewish settlers over the summer.

In Gaza, where the Palestinian leadership has been unable to assert meaningful authority since the Israeli pullout, a British human rights activist and her parents were still missing Thursday, a day after their abduction by armed men in the southern town of Rafah.

Kidnappings of foreigners in Gaza have risen dramatically in recent months, generally carried out by gunmen trying to extort jobs from the Palestinian Authority.

Usually the captives are freed unharmed within hours.