Attacks take toll on Israeli confidence

Seven Israeli soldiers and civilians have died in the last week. As one of them, 15-year-old Nehemia Amar - killed on Saturday night by a suicide bomber after going for a pizza in the Karnei Shomron settlement in the West Bank - was laid to rest, reports quoted officials as saying Israel would escalate its army operations, which already include bombings of Palestinian cities with F-16 warplanes and tank incursions into territory nominally under Palestinian Authority control.

A 14-year-old girl, Keren Shatzki, also killed in the Karnei Shomron explosion, is to be buried today. The attack, the first suicide bombing inside a Jewish settlement, also wounded 20 people.

Responsibility for the bomb, which was packed with nails, was claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in a further indication that secular groups are increasingly adopting the tactics of the fundamentalists.

"The state of Israel is losing the battle for the consciousness of its own citizens," said Ron Ben-Ishai, a military affairs commentator for Israel Television. He pointed to a rally by peace activists on Saturday night that drew more than 10,000 people in Tel Aviv to demand an end to the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a letter by more than 200 reserve officers refusing service in the occupied territories as signs that the public does not endorse the military effort.

"The impression is we don’t know where we are headed tactically and strategically," Mr Ben-Ishai said. "People don’t know why we are fighting."

The bloody incidents began last month when Israeli troops assassinated a Palestinian militia leader, Ra’ed Karmi, putting an end to three weeks in which Palestinian violence had dropped off to its lowest level since the uprising began in September 2000.

Because the deaths trigger devastating revenge attacks, the assassinations policy is said to be under review among the Israeli cabinet, although a Hamas militant, Nabih Abu Sbaa, was killed on Saturday in the town of Jenin.

Police thwarted another suicide attack last night near the Israeli city of Hadera. They shot dead one assailant and mounted a car chase after the other, who blew himself up when he saw he could not get past a roadblock. Three people were wounded, two of them seriously, officials said.

Hours after the suicide bomber struck on Saturday night, Israeli aircraft hit the Palestinian city of Nablus, damaging Palestinian Authority installations and injuring one person in a block of flats.

There were conflicting reports on whether Israel had used F-16s, as it did three times in Gaza City last week, or only Apache assault helicopters.

Israeli troops invaded the Bureij refugee camp over the weekend and killed three Palestinian police after a Palestinian bombing nearby of a tank, in which three soldiers were killed. A fourth Palestinian policemen died in hospital yesterday. It was the first time the Palestinians had succeeded in destroying a tank.

Amid comparisons of that with the Iranian-inspired Hezbollah group’s successful campaign against Israeli forces in Lebanon, which was marked by roadside ambushes and explosions, a leading Israeli commentator, Ofer Shelah, wrote that the current situation is "much worse" than anything Israel faced in Lebanon. "For ten years just a couple of hundred Hezbollah fighters drove the army crazy. The number of Palestinians who have the potential to harm Israel is almost limitless."

The prime minister, Ariel Sharon, said of the recent attacks and reversals: "Israel has never lost a war and it will also be victorious in this war that the Palestinians launched. The residents of Israel have known more difficult times than today’s. Our standing together for the common objective will bring us to victory."

The fighting was fuelled on 29 September, 2000, when five Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli police in Jerusalem after Mr Sharon visited a site holy to both Muslims and Jews in a move seen by Muslims as a provocation.