Bomb Sets Fire to Israeli Fuel Depot

May 23, 2002

TEL AVIV, Israel  — A bomb attached to a tanker truck exploded Thursday at Israel's biggest fuel depot in what police said was likely a Palestinian terror attack. The blast ripped through the driver's cabin and sent fuel pouring onto the tarmac, but the fire was quickly extinguished and no one was hurt.

Palestinian militias have carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israeli cities, but the blast at the fuel depot appeared to signal a shift toward new targets. This week, security officials said they uncovered a plot to explode trucks laden with a ton of explosives under the twin Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, Israel's tallest buildings.

The fuel depot is located close to three major highways and surrounded by residential areas. ``A huge disaster has been averted,'' said Yossi Sedbon, the Tel Aviv police chief. The truck was parked close to other flammable equipment, including a massive fuel storage tank.

A militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement claimed responsibility Thursday for a suicide bombing Wednesday in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Letzion. An elderly man and a teen-age boy were killed in addition to the bomber, and nearly 40 people were hurt.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel's six-week military offensive against Palestinian militias, which wound down last week, has heightened the motivation of militants to carry out more attacks. ``We have come back to that struggle,'' Ben-Eliezer said. ``We are faced with waves of suicide bombers.''

Also Thursday, the five members of the Palestinians' Central Elections Committee submitted their resignations to Arafat after the Palestinian leader failed, despite repeated promises, to set a date for new elections, an official close to the panel said. There was no immediate comment from Arafat's office. Late Wednesday, Arafat met with the head of the elections committee, Mahmoud Abbas.

There was no claim of responsibility for Thursday's explosion at the Pi-Glilot fuel depot, but Sedbon, the Tel Aviv police chief, said that ``all the findings indicate that it was a terrorist attack.''

Sedbon said the explosive charge had been planted on the underside of a tanker truck used for transporting diesel fuel. The tanker had just entered the depot to take on a load of fuel when the bomb went off and the vehicle caught fire, destroying the driver's cabin.

``There was a very powerful explosion,'' Nissim Amir, the driver of another truck, told Israel Radio. ``All the fuel poured out onto the driver who was loading the tanker. We all ran to the scene and grabbed fire extinguishers.''

At the time of the explosion, the tanker was parked next to a dozen other vehicles, and about 100 yards from a huge fuel storage tank. ``An explosion in such a sensitive place with such a huge store of fuel would cause much more significant damage than the explosion of a single tanker,'' Sedbon said.

Sedbon declined comment on radio reports that a cellular phone had been used to set off the bomb. He said police were checking the route of the tanker truck, and ordered all tanker trucks to be searched for explosives.

Ron Ben-Ishai, an Israeli military commentator, said Palestinian militants have been trying since 1998 to carry out mega terror attacks, such as bringing down high-rise buildings. ``The change is that the attempts are now much more frequent and more intensive,'' Ben-Ishai said. ``It's very worrying.''

The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, condemned Wednesday's suicide bombing in Rishon Letzion as a ``terrorist attack'' and said it harmed Palestinian interests.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the bombing, the second in Rishon Letzion in two weeks.

In a leaflet sent to The Associated Press, the group said the bombing came in revenge for Wednesday's killing of Mahmoud Titi, 30, the Al Aqsa leader in the West Bank city of Nablus, in a targeted Israeli attack.

Titi and two other militiamen were sitting in the cemetery of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus when they came under Israeli tank and machine gun fire from a position on a mountain overlooking the camp, witnesses said. Balata is a crowded shantytown, and the cemetery is the only open space available.

The Israeli fire killed the three militiamen and a bystander.

The Israeli military confirmed it had targeted Titi and described him as a ``senior terrorist'' responsible for many attacks against Israelis.

Thousands of Palestinians on Thursday joined the funeral procession for the militiamen, chanting ``revenge, revenge.''

In a recent interview, Titi told AP his goal was to build a Palestinian army that would hunt and kill Israeli soldiers and settlers. Until then, he said, his men were examining maps of Israel to pick out targets for attacks. ``Many of us know Israel very well and know the restaurants, cinemas and theaters,'' Titi said in the interview.

In all, seven Palestinians were killed Wednesday — the four men in Balata, the Rishon Letzion bomber and another assailant who blew himself up, apparently prematurely, at a West Bank junction. The seventh was a Palestinian shopowner who was shot dead by Israeli border policemen during a shouting match at a West Bank checkpoint.

In Washington, State Department official Lynn Cassel denounced the Rishon Letzion bombing, called on Arafat to show leadership and warned that such attacks ``could not help the Palestinians achieve their national aspirations.''

Also Thursday, Israeli soldiers arrested 22 Palestinians in four separate raids in the West Bank, including the Palestinian-controlled town of Hebron, the military said. Troops withdrew from Hebron before dawn.

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