By
The Associated Press
KARNI CROSSING, Gaza Strip - A car bomb was discovered in a crowded neighborhood of Jerusalem yesterday before it could go off, and a U.S.-led commission of inquiry into Israeli-Palestinian violence toured the Gaza Strip.
Jerusalem police commander Mickey Levy said bomb experts identified the device linked to a cellular telephone inside the vehicle and blew it up safely.
A passer-by had spotted the car in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim and alerted police, who closed off the area. In recent weeks, Palestinian militants have used cellular phones to detonate bombs in Israeli cities.
At the Karni Crossing between Israel and Gaza, members of the fact-finding commission, headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, watched as about 20 Palestinian youths threw stones at Israeli troops and Israeli army bulldozers cleared land near a military outpost. Troops did not respond to the stone-throwing.
Karni has been a site of intense Israeli-Palestinian clashes, with several Palestinian rock-throwers killed there, especially in the first stage of the clashes.
The commission, which is investigating the cause of the fighting, has already visited the region once and received reports from both sides.
The Palestinians have said the fighting was triggered by a visit by Ariel Sharon - who was then the opposition leader and has since become Israel's prime minister - to a disputed Jerusalem shrine on Sept. 28. Palestinians have said Sharon's visit, intended to assert Israeli sovereignty claims to the site, was a provocation.
Israel has said the violence was orchestrated by Arafat's Palestinian Authority. In a report to the Mitchell commission submitted Tuesday, Israel cited the Palestinian communications minister, Emad Falouji, who said in a speech earlier this month that the uprising was planned and not a spontaneous outburst.
Falouji has said he was misquoted.
Mitchell said after a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres yesterday that Israeli officials "responded fully, openly and frankly to our questions, and we are pleased with the level of cooperation."
Peres said he believed the commission should not try to affix blame, "but look for ways of how to save the situation from falling apart."
In six months of fighting, 430 people have been killed, including 352 Palestinians, 59 Israeli Jews and 19 others. In trying to quell the violence, Israel has imposed stringent travel restrictions on nearly three million Palestinians.
Peres said he opposed Palestinian attempts to persuade the United Nations to deploy peacekeepers in the area to protect Palestinian civilians.
At Karni, two Israeli army jeeps led the delegation's car around an army watchtower guarded by seven tanks tucked behind sand mounds. The commission found that electricity lines had been cut in the area, knocking out power to some Palestinian homes.
Two nearby bulldozers were clearing more land, apparently to deprive Palestinian gunmen of cover in possible attacks on Israeli positions. Behind sandbagged shelters, Israeli soldiers stood on the rooftops of Palestinian homes.
In the West Bank town of Nablus, meanwhile, Palestinian officials said police arrested four men who were injured in an explosion in a suspected bomb lab. The blast went off Tuesday night in an apartment in Nablus. Eight people were injured when the walls of the apartment collapsed.
