By NNN-KUNA
Ramallah : Palestinian Minister of Information Riyadh Al-Maliki has said that the bomb attack that took place on Monday at a shopping centre in the southern Israeli town of Dimona would unlikely affect the ongoing talks with the Jewish state.
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the shopping centre, killing an Israeli woman and injuring 23 others while a second attacker was shot dead before he could detonate his explosive device.
“The attacker is a resident of Al-Sabra town, Gaza Strip, and Absan town which is adjacent to Khan Yunis city, Gaza Strip,” the minister told reporters after a Palestinian cabinet meeting here Monday.
The attack does not constitute a security breach on the part of the Palestinian government, he asserted, refuting as “fabricated” earlier press reports to the effect that the attackers belonged to the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“The Palestinian National Authority is against any violent attacks against civilians. It condemns all forms of violence in act or speech,” he reiterated.
Thr Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian mainstream Fatah movement, and Abul-Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the People Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as a new armed group called the Resistance Brigades, claimed joint responsibility for the attack.
“The attack is a partial retaliation against the Israeli perpetual crimes against the Palestinian people,” said a spokesman of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
The spokesman identified the attackers as Lu’ai Al-Aghwani and Moussa Arafat, vowing to pursue the course of resistance till “full liberation of Palestine.”
With an estimated population of 40,000, Dimona — a tiny town between the West Bank to the north, Jordan to the east, Gaza to the northwest and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to the southwest — gained notoriety well beyond its size because of the nearby Negev Nuclear Research Centre.
It was a target for the Scud missiles fired by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime during the 1991 Gulf war.