Palestinian suicide bomber kills 5 Israelis, wounds 30

The Palestinian leader scolded militants just hours earlier.
HADERA, Israel (AP) -- A 20-year-old Palestinian blacksmith blew himself up at a falafel stand in an open-air market Wednesday, killing five Israelis and wounding more than 30 in the deadliest attack in the country in more than three months.
The bombing stifled faint peace hopes after Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip. The blast also embarrassed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who only hours earlier had scolded militant groups for repeatedly violating a truce.
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, saying the attack was to avenge the killing of its West Bank leader by Israeli forces this week.
The bomber struck while the market in the central town of Hadera was bustling a day after being closed for the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah.
After the attack, the bloodied body of a man in his 50s lay on the ground among scattered fruits and mangled metal shards. Rescue workers covered other bodies with blankets, walking on pools of blood and shattered glass. A section of the falafel stand's metal roof hung from a eucalyptus tree high above the market.
Witness upset
Jack Weinberg, a Brooklyn-born psychologist in Hadera, arrived at the scene shortly after the blast and saw the wreckage of a car. "If this could happen to a car, which is made of metal, I was afraid of what it could do to a person," he said.
The attack came hours after Iran's state-run media reported comments from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and saying a new wave of Palestinian attacks would destroy the Jewish state.
Recalling Iran's history of support for Islamic Jihad, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev criticized both Ahmadinejad's statement and another from Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the Hamas militant group in Gaza who threatened fresh violence against Israel.
"Today, Israelis heard two extremists speak openly about destroying the Jewish state. One was the new president of Iran, and the other was the leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Zahar. And it appears the problem with these extremists is that they followed through on their violent declarations with violent actions," Regev told The Associated Press.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan condemned the bombing and called on the Palestinian leadership to crack down on militants.
In a phone call to the AP, Islamic Jihad said the bombing was to avenge the killing of Luay Saadi, leader of the group's military wing in the West Bank. Saadi died in a shootout with Israeli soldiers Monday.
In Gaza on Wednesday evening, dozens of masked Islamic Jihad militants held a news conference at which they celebrated the attack in Hadera as a "great victory as a message to our beloved Palestinian people and Islamic and Arab nations."
Wednesday's suicide bomber was identified as a 20-year-old from the West Bank town of Qabatiyeh. His name, Hassan Abu Zeid, was announced over a bullhorn in Qabatiyeh, residents said.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.