Jerusalem car explosions hamper US mission

Howard Goller

A policeman examines wreckage afterthe blasts. Reuters

Jerusalem, May 27: Palestinian militants set off two car bombs in Jerusalem on Sunday, injuring up to four people and hampering a US envoy’s mission to end eight months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The new envoy, William Burns, condemned the bombings and told reporters he had urged Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to ‘‘do everything possible to stop such attacks’’ during a two-hour meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The bombs blew up 200 metres and nine hours apart. One exploded minutes after midnight in a bar district packed with young Israelis and the other at 9 am off a main shopping street ahead of the Jewish festival of Shavuot commemorating the receiving of the Ten Commandments.

The second one was loaded with mortar bombs which flew over rooftops, landing unexploded on a porch and in a public park hundreds of metres away.

Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for the two blasts in faxes to Reuters in Beirut. Two to four people were hurt by glass shards in the second blast, claimed by the Islamic Jihad group.

‘‘I was selling bagels when all of a sudden I heard two strong explosions and four small ones. People started running,’’ said Noah Goldberg, who was working at a coffee shop when the blast occurred.

‘‘The streets were empty as it was only nine o’clock in the morning,’’ police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said after the second explosion. The bombs dealt a blow to a bid by the US, the traditional broker in Middle-East peacemaking, to coax Israelis and Palestinians into halting the bloodshed.

Burns, Assistant Secretary of State-designate for Near Eastern Affairs, met Arafat at his West Bank headquarters and said he would urge Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem later in the day not to retaliate for the bombings. ‘‘I’ll certainly encourage Israel to continue its policy of restraint,’’ he told reporters.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said they did not expect an immediate breakthrough. Statements by both sides on the eve of the meetings offered little hope they were closer to ending hostilities.

A spokesman for Sharon, Raanan Gissin, said Israel’s five-day-old unilateral ceasefire remained intact. He blamed Arafat and the Palestinian Authority for the rise in car bombings.

‘‘At this stage the ceasefire is still in effect but of course our patience is running short with the continuation, the escalation in car bomb attacks which are all attributed to the Palestinian Authority,’’ Gissin said. (Reuters)