Suicide attack spree scuttles peace process

A Palestinian suicide bomber on a bicycle injured three Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip on Monday in the latest in a series of attacks th...

A Palestinian suicide bomber on a bicycle injured three Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip on Monday in the latest in a series of attacks that have dimmed hopes for a new US-backed peace plan.

The bombing near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom came a day after a militant disguised as a religious Jew blew himself up on a Jerusalem bus, killing seven people.

3 dead in suicide blast

AFULA: A suspected Palestinian suicide bomber struck an Israeli shopping mall on Monday, killing three people. The bomber detonated his explosives when he was confronted by a woman security guard at the entrance to the shopping centre in the town of Afula. The guard and bomber were among the dead and 17 people were wounded in what was described as a ‘‘huge explosion’’. (Reuters)

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In Monday’s attack, a Palestinian with 10 to 20 kg of explosives packed on the back of his bicycle blew up near an Army jeep, killing no one but himself, the Israeli area commander said. He said three soldiers were slightly injured.

‘‘We will not stop our resistance as long as one Zionist continues to breathe our air,’’ the militant Islamic group Hamas, which has vowed to wreck the peace plan, said in a faxed claim of responsibility.

Meanwhile, Israel arrested eight Arab residents of Jerusalem suspected of planning to take hostages and exchange them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a police spokesman said on Sunday.

The eight members of Hamas intended to hijack an Israeli bus and drive it to the West Bank to demand the prisoners’ release, spokesman Gil Kleiman said. He said they also planned to kidnap a soldier and build bombs in a Jerusalem apartment. ‘‘The Israeli security agency and an undercover unit of the Jerusalem district police recently caught a Hamas cell…The members of the terror cell were given instructions by Hamas prisoners in an Israeli jail,’’ Kleiman said.(Reuters)