Suicide bomber kills at least 5

TEL AVIV, Israel -- A Palestinian blew himself up on a crowded bus Thursday in downtown Tel Aviv, killing at least five other people and wounding 49, the second suicide bombing in two days. In response, Israeli tanks charged into Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters.\nThe shrapnel-studded explosives tore through the bus on Tel Aviv's Allenby Street while it was passing through the heart of a teeming restaurant and business district at lunchtime. The driver, his body blackened, slumped at the wheel. Passengers jumped out of shattered windows.\nThere was no immediate claim of responsibility, though Israeli media outlets reported conflicting claims by the militant Palestinian groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas.\nIn the evening, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with his Cabinet, Israeli tanks entered Arafat's city-block-sized headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian leader was holed up in his offices.\nAn official inside the compound said the Israeli tanks had advanced to the area of a helicopter landing pad outside Arafat's office building, which is protected by piles of sandbags.\nIsrael has held Arafat's Palestinian Authority responsible for anti-Israeli attacks, saying it has not done enough to crack down on militants. Israeli troop have held Ramallah under siege for most of the year, with tanks breaking into the compound several times, destroying some buildings. Arafat has been confined to his office building most of the time since December.\nThe Israeli military did not comment on the new incursion, though military sources confirmed an operation was underway. Palestinian officials said two guards were injured during the incursion.\nAfter past terror attacks, hardline Israeli Cabinet ministers have called for Arafat's expulsion, but Sharon has resisted pressure to do so.\nIn other violence Thursday, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the West Bank town of Ramallah when he broke an Israeli curfew to buy cigarettes for his father. Witnesses said he was shot by Israeli soldiers. The military said it was checking the incident. In Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers razed the family homes of two Palestinians who blew themselves up in Jerusalem on Dec. 1, killing 11 bystanders.\nBefore this week, there had been no suicide bombings in Israel since Aug. 4. The renewed attacks came a day after Israel rejected a Palestinian proposal for a two-stage truce. Israel said the Palestinian offer to halt attacks in Israel proper during the first phase implied Palestinians still would feel free to strike Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.\nPresident Bush said he strongly condemned the back-to-back suicide bombings. "All parties must do everything they can to reject and stop violence," Bush said at a meeting in the Oval Office.\nAfter Thursday's blast, Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab told The Associated Press he expected to see "a series of operations against the Zionist enemy, as a result of the daily brutal crimes against our people." But he stopped short of claiming responsibility.\nIslamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack, in which a suicide bomber blew himself at a bus stop in northern Israel, killing an Israeli policeman.\nThursday's explosion went off just after 1 p.m., outside one of the major synagogues in Tel Aviv, across the street from a Starbucks coffee shop and a block away from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.\nHerzl Ben-Moshe, a store owner trying to rescue passengers, said he saw several people lying on the floor of the bus, including one man whose legs had been blown off. "People were yelling, 'Take us out of here,'" Ben-Moshe said.\n"People were hurting, screaming, wounded. We saw pieces of people," said Zohara Pillo, 27, a visitor from Haifa. "The driver was sitting in his seat and his hands were on the window and he was dead, he was all blackened," she said.\nThe blast scorched the bus and blew out its windows. One man with blood over his bare chest was wheeled away by paramedics. Another man sat on the sidewalk, crying. Religious volunteers in white overalls later searched the area, picking bits of flesh and placing them into plastic bags. Jewish law requires burial of the entire body.\nMark Sofer, an official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said that "once again, the utter bestiality of Palestinian terrorism has reared its ugly head, on a bus in Tel Aviv." Sofer held the Palestinian Authority responsible, saying it had done nothing to rein in militants.