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Blast kills 5 Israelis, erodes peace hopes
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-27 08:47

A 20-year-old Palestinian blacksmith blew himself up at a falafel stand in an open-air market Wednesday, killing five Israelis and wounding more than 30 in the deadliest attack in the country in more than three months.

The bombing stifled faint peace hopes following Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip. The blast also embarrassed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who only hours earlier had scolded militant groups for repeatedly violating a truce.

Palestinian gunmen from four armed factions, including the Islamic Jihad, speak during a news conference in Gaza October 26, 2005.
Palestinian gunmen from four armed factions, including the Islamic Jihad, speak during a news conference in Gaza October 26, 2005.[Reuters]
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, saying the attack was to avenge the killing of its West Bank leader by Israeli forces this week.

The bomber struck while the market in the central town of Hadera was bustling a day after being closed for the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.

After the attack, the bloodied body of a man in his 50's lay on the ground among scattered fruits and mangled metal shards. Rescue workers covered other bodies with blankets, walking on pools of blood and shattered glass. A section of the falafel stand's metal roof hung from a eucalyptus tree high above the market.

Covered bodies lie on the ground as Israeli policemen inspect the area of a suicide bomb attack in the Israeli coastal city of Hadera, some 40 km (25 miles) north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday Oct. 26, 2005.
Covered bodies lie on the ground as Israeli policemen inspect the area of a suicide bomb attack in the Israeli coastal city of Hadera, some 40 km (25 miles) north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday Oct. 26, 2005. [AP]
Jack Weinberg, a Brooklyn-born psychologist in Hadera, arrived at the scene shortly after the blast and saw the wreckage of a car. "If this could happen to a car which is made of metal, I was afraid of what it could do to a person," he said.

Then Weinberg saw a dismembered body with its face still intact. "It was the most frightening thing," he said.

The attack came hours after Iran's state-run media reported comments from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and saying a new wave of Palestinian attacks would destroy the Jewish state.

Recalling Iran's history of support for Islamic Jihad, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev criticized both Ahmadinejad's statement and another from Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the Hamas militant group in Gaza who threatened fresh violence against Israel.
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