Suicide Bombing Kills Woman in Israel

Palestinian Attack Is First of Its Kind in a Year; Use of Border Breach Investigated

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An Israeli police explosives robot removes clothing from the body of a suicide bomber at the scene of an attack in the town of Dimona, southern Israel, Monday, Feb. 4, 2008. A suicide bomber on Monday blew himself up in the southern town that houses Israel's secretive nuclear reactor, killing at least one Israeli and wounding six, one critically, Israeli authorities said. Police said they killed a second attacker before he had a chance to detonate his explosives belt. (Yehuda Lahiany - AP)

Map locates Dimona, Israel, where a suicide bombing killed at least three. (Yuko Yajima - AP)

An Israeli woman injured in a suicide bombing reacts as she is brought to the hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel, Monday, Feb. 4, 2008. (Diego Mitelberg - AP)

An Israeli man injured in a suicide bombing is brought to the hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel, Monday, Feb. 4, 2008. (Diego Mitelberg - AP)

An Israeli police officer shouts at the scene of a suicide bombing in the town of Dimona, southern Israel, Monday, Feb. 4, 2008. (Yehuda Lahiany - AP)

Palestinian mourners attend the funeral of of Islamic Jihad militants Ammar Zakarneh and Ahmed Abo Zeid in the northern West Bank village of Qabatiya, Monday, Feb 4, 2008. Israeli special forces killed the two armed members of the Islamic Jihad militant group and seriously wounded a third on a pre-dawn raid Monday into Qabatiya, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. (Mohammed Ballas - AP)

An Israeli police officer patrols the bloodstained scene of the attack along a shopping street in Dimona, a town about 40 miles from the Gaza Strip. (By David Silverman -- Getty Images)

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By Ellen Knickmeyer

Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 5, 2008; Page A16

JERUSALEM, Feb. 4 -- Palestinian suicide bombers struck a shopping street in southern Israel on Monday, killing an Israeli woman and injuring more than 20 other people in the first such attack in a year.

Israeli officials said they were investigating whether the two men who carried out the attack in the town of Dimona had taken advantage of the opening of the Gaza Strip-Egypt border last month to cross into Egypt and then enter Israel.

Egyptian authorities continued their efforts to reseal the border Monday, prompting violence between Palestinians and Egyptian security forces that left one Palestinian dead and at least three injured, according to health officials in Gaza. Ambulances took away an unspecified number of injured Egyptian troops.

On Jan. 23, Palestinian gunmen used explosives and machinery to knock down miles of the concrete and metal barriers on the seven-mile border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Home to 1.5 million Palestinians, Gaza is bordered by Israel to the east and Egypt to the southwest.

Israeli officials have warned of new attacks since the border walls fell, saying they believed Palestinians had used the breach to smuggle arms into Gaza and to send attackers to Egypt on their way to Israel.

In Jerusalem, before the Dimona bombing, Israeli officials said they had decided to reinforce Israeli troops on the Egyptian border and revive plans to fence the entire 140-mile boundary between Egypt and Israel.

Despite "what has been largely a quiet border over three decades" following the signing of a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, it was clear that Israel "can no longer assume that's going to be the case in the coming weeks and months," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government.

In January 2007, a Palestinian from Gaza trekked across the Sinai desert and attacked a bakery in the Israeli resort city of Eilat, where he killed three Israelis and himself.

Monday's blast occurred on a street lined with shops in Dimona, about 40 miles from the Gaza Strip. A nuclear reactor facility there is believed to be the site of Israel's nuclear weapons program, although Israel has never acknowledged having such weapons. Israeli authorities said the reactor was not the target.

At about 10:30 a.m., two Palestinians wearing explosive belts entered one end of the shopping street. One detonated his explosives, killing the woman and injuring more than 20 other people, including his accomplice.

A physician, Baruch Mandelzweig, told news agencies that he and nurses from his nearby clinic started to treat a critically injured man before they spotted a belt rigged with explosives. "We ran away," Mandelzweig said.

An Israeli officer then shot the man five times, the last time point-blank in the head, killing him before he could detonate his belt.

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