Israel will not launch major military action in retaliation to Friday night's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, which killed four people and wounded dozens, senior Israeli government sources said Saturday. The government, however, will intensify political pressure on Syria for backing Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the attack, Haaretz reported.
At a meeting of security chiefs Saturday, Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said the process of transferring security control of West Bank cities to the PA would be frozen, "until further evaluation, in which Israel will examine whether Abu Mazen's [PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] government has taken the necessary steps against Islamic Jihad and the other terror organizations."
At Saturday's meeting, Mofaz said: "Syria continues to sponsor and encourage terror organizations to carry out attacks, which endangers the process with the Palestinians and stability in the region." Mofaz instructed intelligence officials to go to the United States and Europe to present governments there with information linking Islamic Jihad to the attack.
Israeli sources said the cell that dispatched the suicide bomber, Abdallah Badran, 21, a student from the village of Deir al Ghasan near Tulkarem, received its instructions directly from Damascus. Badran's dispatchers released a videotape in which he accused the Palestinian Authority of surrendering to the U.S. military.
