Suicide Bomber Lull Over

An Israeli police officer examines the site of an explosion that killed three people in the southern city of Eilat, Israel. Photo by Ariel Schalit/Associated Press.

Eilat, Israel – A Palestinian suicide bomber killed three Israelis at a bakery yesterday in the first such attack inside the country in nine months, and the two radical groups that claimed to have sent him said they were trying to end weeks of Palestinian infighting by taking aim at Israel instead.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed a preplanned meeting of his Kadima faction of the Israeli Knesset parliament only two hours after the terror attack in Israel’s port city of Eilat. He described the timing of the attack as “taking place during a period of relative calm” with Israeli’s Palestinian adversaries, despite the fact that Israel’s southern region had suffered at least 90 missile attacks since Israel’s self imposed cease fire and declaration of a policy of restraint that the Jewish state declared on Nov. 26.

“This is a grave incident, it’s an escalation and we shall treat it as such,” said Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

The names of all three victims of the Palestinian terror attack in an Eilat bakery were released for publication last night.

The two owners of the bakery, Amil Elimelech, 32, and Michael Ben Sa’adon, 27 were killed in the attack, as well as one of their employees, Israel Samolia, 26.

Elimelech was married with two children while Ben Sa’adon was married with one child.

Samolia was an immigrant from Peru. His family, currently residing in Miami, was noti-

©The Bulletin 2007