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JERUSALEM - A woman suicide bomber said by relatives to be 68-years-old blew herself up close to Israeli troops during a day of fresh bloodshed in northern Gaza which left at least seven Palestinians dead.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing which came as Israeli forces stepped up
military operations with the stated intention of curbing Qassam rockets, seven of which were launched into Israeli communities yesterday, causing no injuries.
Two Israeli civilians have been killed by the rockets in the last week.
Three soldiers were slightly injured by the bombing after troops alerted to her presence in the vicinity fired a stun grenade at the woman, the Army said, adding that the woman had then panicked and detonated the explosion.
Hamas named the woman as Fatma An Najar and said that she was 57.
But at her home last night in Jabliya a woman Fatheya, 52, told Associated Press she was the bomber's eldest daughter.
"They (Israelis) destroyed her house, they killed her grandson, my son," she said.
"Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg. She and I, we went to the mosque. We were looking for martyrdom."
Six other Palestinians, including at least five gunmen, were killed in three separate ground and air attacks after troops came under fire from anti tank missiles earlier in the day.
Four other Israeli soldiers were injured.
Four Palestinians including a 34-year-old civilian woman and a 14-year-old boy were killed on Wednesday.
Hopes of any political breakthrough appeared last night to rest with a visit to Cairo by Khaled Mashaal, the hard-line Damascus based Hamas leader.
Earlier hopes of a Gaza ceasefire-to which the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had reported Hamas were willing to sign up-earlier this week failed to materialise.
The Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert had rounded on the Defence Minister Amir Peretz for seeking to usurp his own role by speaking directly to Mr Abbas to try and arrange a halt to the bloodshed.
The liberal daily Haaretz this week blamed a "petty power struggle" for sabotaging ceasefire hopes and said it "indicated failure in the way burning issues are treated, and an excessive focus on prestige and small-time politics."
Louise Arbour, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, who visited Beit Hanoun, where 18 members of a single family were killed by artillery shelling earlier this month, called for "law based, independent, transparent and accessible" investigations into possible violations of international law, including the shelling.
In a statement which also strongly condemned Qassam rocket attacks, she said this would afford Palestinians access to reparations to which they were entitled-"something which at the moment is not the case."
- INDEPENDENT