Bomber kills 3 in resort town, Israeli police say

He also said attacks on Israel were preferable to the recent bout of Palestinian infighting in Gaza between his group and the more moderate Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas. “The right thing is for Fatah weapons to be directed toward the occupation not toward Hamas,” Barhoum said.

Tough response?
An Israeli spokesman reacted cautiously to the initial reports of an attack, but hinted at a potentially tough response.

“At this point it’s unclear what the origin of the terror attack is,” said David Baker, an official in Olmert’s office. “Israel as a nation is continually confronting terror threats. Israel is always on guard against such attacks and we are compelled to continue to do so.”

After Monday’s blast, police cordoned off the area, and Bruno Stein, Eilat’s police commander, said the police believed there could be more bombers in the city.

“Our assumption is that it’s not one bomber, and there might be more bombers in Eilat right now,” Stein said. Israeli emergency services went on high alert.

First attack in resort city
The attack was the first suicide bombing to hit Eilat, which is distant from Israel’s major population centers and has been largely insulated from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Suicide bombings are sharply down from their height four years ago, when hundreds of Israelis were killed in dozens of attacks. However, a renewal of such violence could derail efforts by the United States, Israel and Abbas to renew long-stalled peace talks.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, one of the groups claiming responsibility for Monday’s attack, is linked to Fatah. However, Fatah spokesman Ahmad Abdul Rahman condemned the violence. “We are against any operation that targets civilians, Israelis or Palestinians,” he said.

Eilat is located on the Red Sea near the Jordanian and Egyptian border, and al-Qaida operatives have been active in both neighboring countries. However, there was no indication the group was involved in Monday’s attack. There was no immediate word on how the bomber reached Eilat.

Palestinian attackers from the West Bank have been able to infiltrate Israel by traveling in cars with Israeli license plates, often driven by Arab citizens of Israel. Several Palestinian tourism agencies based in Jerusalem run tours to Eilat for West Bank Palestinians. The buses, which also have Israeli license plates, travel quickly through checkpoints with minimal inspections.

The Israel-Egypt border, which runs near Eilat, is regularly crossed by smugglers entering Israel, according to police. Though the smugglers for the most part bring drugs and prostitutes into Israel, local officials in Eilat raised the possibility that the bomber had used the smuggling route to cross from Egypt.

The only attack to hit Eilat since the renewed outbreak of Israel-Palestinian violence in 2000 came in August 2005, when Islamist militants linked to al-Qaida fired a rocket from Jordanian territory at the city, causing no casualties.

The last deadly attack in the city was in 1992, when Palestinian militants swam to an Eilat beach and killed an Israeli security guard.

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