Israel has denied any involvement in this week’s explosion at a bomb factory located in the heart of Gaza City.
Palestinian police said that Sunday’s explosion occurred when bombs being made by members of the militant fundamentalist Hamas movement blew up prematurely.
The explosion ripped through a Gaza City apartment building, killing at least six people, including a senior Hamas activist who was sought by Israeli and Palestinian security forces.
Among the dead was Kamal Kheil, a member of Izz a-Din al-Kassam, the military wing of Hamas. A 3-year-old girl was also among the dead, according to witnesses. Some reports said eight people had died.
The explosion, which gutted the second floor of an apartment building in Gaza, also left at least 20 people wounded.
Large numbers of Palestinian police and ambulances came to the site, which was reportedly strewn with body parts as far as 300 yards from the apartment building. Bomb crews found several other explosive devices that did not go off at the site, as well as hand grenades and assault rifles.
In a statement issued Sunday, Hamas claimed that Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat had conspired with Israel to kill Kheil in the explosion.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres flatly denied the accusations leveled by Hamas.
“Israel has nothing to do with the explosion in Gaza yesterday,” Peres said, adding that the Hamas attempt “to finger Israel is total nonsense.”
“Instead of killing other people, those gentlemen killed themselves, and thank heaven they did not kill other people,” Peres added.
Appearing before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said he expected Hamas to attempt to carry out a terror attack in Israel in an effort to regain its sense of prestige after the debacle of the weekend blast.
Meanwhile, Israel Radio reported that a Gaza truck which was apparently intended to be used for a terrorist bombing near Beersheba last month was filled with explosives made in the Gaza City bomb factory.
Israeli police discovered the truck before the attack could be carried out.
Rabin said there was still no detailed information about the other Hamas members killed in Sunday’s explosion.
Palestinian police reportedly said Monday that one of the unidentified bodies might be that of Yehia Ayash, a top Hamas bomb maker known as “the engineer,” who was wanted in Israel for planning and engineering several terror attacks.
Rabin’s remarks before the committee came as the government withstood two no- confidence motions submitted by members of the opposition over what they called Israel’s eroding security situation.
Peres, who responded for the government, said the government will continue to attempt to advance the peace process.
The Knesset defeated the vote 58-46.
Elsewhere in Gaza City, some 10,000 Hamas supporters crowded the streets Monday for a symbolic funeral after Palestinian officials refused to allow the explosion’s victims to be buried in a public funeral.
The event, replete with empty stretchers normally used to carry bodies to the cemetery, soon turned into a demonstration against Israel. The marchers reportedly shouted “Revenge, revenge” and “We want to hear the Jews crying.”
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority officials criticized Hamas for setting up the bomb factory in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City.
Hisham Abdel-Razek, a PLO activist, accused Hamas of hurting Palestinian aspirations by plotting terror attacks against Israel.
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