news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4299609.stm
Printable version Blast hits clubbers in Tel Aviv People at the blast scene The club was popular for weekend revellers A suicide bombing has killed four people and injured about 30 outside a n ight club in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, police have reported. The bomber set off a device as people queued to get into the club, which is in a popular seafront area, a police spokesman said. Israel's government said the blast had shown Palestinian attempts to prev ent militant attacks had failed. Two Palestinian militant groups each claimed responsibility. Such groups had refrained from attacks since an unofficial truce was agre ed with Israel earlier in February. The Palestinian Authority has condemned the attack, describing it as a bi d to sabotage the peace process. Young victims The bomb went off at the entrance to a club called The Stage on Herbert S amuel Street, close to the promenade, Tel Aviv police chief David Tsour said. Blast scene The bomb hit on a busy night for the club "We passed the crosswalk and suddenly there was a huge explosion," an unn amed witness told Israel's Army Radio. Israeli media report the blast occurred at 2315 (2115 GMT) Alon Kotler, a paramedic who treated several of the wounded told the Isra eli newspaper Haaretz that rescuers had found "young people lying on top of each other, most of them moderately to seriously wounded". The type of wounds, he said, indicated that the suicide bomber had set of f the bomb in the midst of the clubbers. The Stage, usually very busy on a Friday night, had just opened its doors when the bomb went off, its manager told Channel 2 TV. Conflicting claims Militant attacks fell away in the days after Israel and the Palestinian A uthority reached a truce at a summit in Egypt on 8 February. "The Palestinian Authority's attempt to reach arrangements for the preven tion of terror have failed," Israeli government spokesman David Baker to ld Reuters news agency. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the attack. "Whoever is behind it is seriously attempting to sabotage the efforts bei ng exerted to revive the peace process and should not be allowed to succ eed," he said. The Islamic Jihad group said it had carried out the attack, in a statemen t carried by Reuters news agency. "This is a martyrdom operation that shows we are not committed to the cea sefire because Israel is continuing to kill and arrest Palestinians," it said. However, Nafez Azzam, one of the group's leaders in the Gaza Strip, told The Associated Press it was continuing to honour the ceasefire. AFP news agency for its part received a claim from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' B rigades group but the group was later quoted by al-Jazeera Satellite TV as saying it condemned the attack.
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