Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 26 December 2003 — Tit-for-tat violence resumed in earnest in Israel and the Palestinian territories yesterday. A Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop near Tel Aviv, killing three bystanders, minutes after Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car in Gaza City, killing a senior Islamic Jihad commander and four other people.

The bombing was the first in more than two months.

The bomber approached the bus stop on the busy north-south Geha Highway on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and blew himself up, killing two women and a man, said Israeli Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki. At least 13 other people were wounded.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility in a call to newspaper offices.

In Gaza a few minutes before, witnesses said Israeli helicopters fired two missiles at a car between Gaza City and the nearby Jebaliya refugee camp, killing the top commander of the Islamic Jihad group, Mekled Hamid, 30, and four other people — two Islamic Jihad members and two bystanders. Hospital officials said 14 people were wounded, three of them seriously.

It was the first airstrike of its type in more than two months. Israeli Army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal described Hamid as a “ticking bomb.” He said Hamid “was behind a long, list of terror attacks, and he was in the midst of planning a major attack.”

In the past, assassinations have triggered retaliation by hard-line groups in the form of bomb attacks inside Israel. At Gaza’s Shifa Hospital a masked Islamic Jihad member pledged revenge.

The last time Israel used a helicopter to kill Palestinians was Oct. 20, when missiles killed 14 people, most of them bystanders, in the Nusseirat refugee camp.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei condemned both the Israeli air raid the Palestinian bomb attack.

Israel imposed a “total closure” on the Palestinian territories and called for the resumption of talks. A resumption of high-level talks with the Palestinians is vital “to avoid a dangerous political vacuum”, senior Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said.

“Israel will take all measures that it deems essential to ensure its security, but there is an urgent need to re-launch negotiations at the highest level, for without it a dangerous political vacuum will emerge,” Pazner said.

—Additional input from agencies