It was the first such attack on Petach Tikva and the first successful suicide bombing in Israel since a bomber killed two people and himself in Rishon Letzion, south of Tel Aviv, on May 22nd. Qalqiliya, just 10 kilometers north of Petach Tiqva, is considered a crossing point for suicide bombers entering Israel.
A senior Israeli official was quick to blame Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the attack. He said: "Yasser Arafat is the chairman of the Palestinian National Authority and is directly responsible for the inaction of his security services. He talks about reform but does nothing against terrorism."
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "Chairman Arafat rejects any Israeli accusation against the Palestinian National Authority. We condemn the killing of civilians, be they Palestinians or Israelis."
The blast was claimed by Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction, which has refused to heed the Palestinian leadership's appeals for an end to attacks on Israeli civilians while Israel continues its attacks on Palestinian civilians. The same group carried out the Rishon Letzion blast.
The latest attack came just hours after Israeli occupation forces stormed Bethlehem in search of resistance activists and netted one of the most wanted Palestinians. Dozens of Palestinians were seized as troops and armored vehicles moved into Bethlehem before dawn, taking up positions in the town, including around the Church of the Nativity, where a five-week siege ended on May 10th. Israel said it arrested the head of the Bethlehem branch of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and several of his cohorts, blaming them for a number of recent suicide bombings.
It was the second such raid in 24 hours and came a day after the Chief of Staff, General Shaul Mofaz, warned that Israel could launch much deeper incursions to thwart suicide attackers, who, according to Israeli statistics, are being intercepted at a rate of two a day.
Erekat said Arafat feared a renewed Israeli occupation of Ramallah, the scene of a brutal Israeli onslaught last month that left the Palestinian leader under siege for a month.
Palestinian security sources said the Israeli army had declared the whole of Bethlehem a "closed military zone" off-limits to the press, and slapped a curfew on the town to prevent resistance fighters again seeking sanctuary in the Nativity Church.
Meanwhile the Israeli army still encircled Tulkarm, north of Qalqilya, which it had occupied on Sunday while Palestinians also reported raids in Hebron and four nearby villages, where dozens were taken prisoner.
The occupation army said it was "operating in the Bethlehem sector to hit the infrastructures of terrorism and preserve the gains of Operation Defensive Wall", the aggression launched in the West Bank at the end of March. The army had already moved into Bethlehem twice over the weekend and trashed the home of a local Islamic Jihad leader who narrowly escaped capture. Israeli officials have warned the army may launch new raids on Palestinian cities as armed Palestinian organizations regroup after the initial impact of Israel's West Bank offensive.
Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said security forces were "preventing 90 per cent of planned attacks, capturing two suicide bombers every day before they can strike." "We now hope that the operations we have launched [in Tulkarm, Qalqilya and Bethlehem] will reduce the remaining 10%."
Yesterday, Israeli police also found a 10-kilo bomb in the Jewish settlement suburb of Ramat Eshkol in annexed East Jerusalem. It was safely defused.
