HIGHLIGHTS: Attack Once More Exposes The Fragility of Israel's American-backed Concept of Security||Israel Suspends So-called 'Measures to Ease Palestinian Suffering Under Occupation'||Israeli, Five Palestinians Including Baby Born Prematurely Killed Wednesday||International Mediators Facing Difficulties Reviving Peace-Making||Bush to Meet Quartet Thursday||Arafat May Appoint Prime Minister|| STORY: Two Palestinian Resistance bombers killed at least three other people and wounded 40 when they blew themselves up in rapid succession in Tel Aviv's foreign worker neighborhood Wednesday. (Read photo caption)

The attacks followed a Palestinian bus ambush which killed seven Israelis near the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement of Emmanuel in the West Bank Tuesday, shattering a month of relative calm and exposing the fragility of Israel's American concept of security.

Police said the bombers killed three other people, at least one foreign worker among them. About six people were seriously wounded in the attack.

The Lebanese Hizbollah group's al-Manar television station said the Palestinian Resistance group Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility for the blasts in a telephone call.

Islamic Jihad officials in the Gaza Strip did not confirm the group carried out the attack but said it showed resistance to Israeli occupation would not be broken after 21 months of futile Israeli military operations since the Palestinians rose up seeking independence.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's office said he had decided for now to freeze measures aimed at easing hardships Palestinian civilians were suffering since the army's reoccupation of seven West Bank cities. It gave no details.

In Washington, President Bush condemned the bombing and said peace could not be built on a "platform of violence against innocents."

"These terrorist acts are also attacks on our efforts to restore hope to the Palestinian people...As I said on June 24, the hopes of a few cannot be allowed to hold the hopes of many hostage," Bush said in a written statement.

ATTACK EXPOSES FRAGILITY OF ISRAEL'S AMERICAN-BACKED CONCEPT OF 'SECURITY'

The incident was a blow to Israeli security forces' hopes of ending bomb attacks. They reoccupied seven of the eight Palestinian cities in the West Bank nearly a month ago with the declared aim of stopping suicide bombers from reaching Israel.

Israel had postponed talks with the Palestinians as it buried its dead from the Emmanuel attack, which was claimed by the militant Hamas group and condemned by President Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Authority said the attacks highlighted the risk to the Palestinian people's interests. It said they also underlined the tensions caused by Israel's military reoccupation of Palestinian-ruled cities.

RESISTANCE MEN AND OCCUPATION TROOPS CLASH

In the West Bank earlier Wednesday, an Israeli officer and a Palestinian Resistance man were killed when Israeli troops clashed with the Palestinians who had mounted the bus ambush. Occupation troops backed by helicopters spread out on the West Bank hills in search of the other attackers.

Israeli occupation forces killed two Resistance men from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a Resistance group linked to Arafat's Fatah faction, in an exchange of fire in a northern West Bank village, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

Occupation troops also killed a Resistance man trying to infiltrate into Israel near the West Bank city of Qalqiliya, the occupation army claimed.

In a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian medical sources said two Palestinians had been killed and nine wounded in an unexplained explosion.

In hospital, a baby born prematurely to a woman wounded in the ambush Tuesday died.

QUARTET FACING DIFFICULTIS REVIVING PEACEMAKING

Major powers involved in Middle East diplomacy are also facing difficulties reviving peacemaking.

After talks in New York, the European Union, Russia, the United Nations, Egypt and Jordan disagreed with Secretary of State Colin Powell on relations with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and on whether Palestinians alone can end the bloodshed.

Bush, who played down the differences, is due to meet foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan at the White House Thursday.

ARAFAT MAY APPOINT PRIME MINISTER

Yasser Arafat is considering the appointment of a prime minister to share the day-to-day running of government once a Palestinian state is declared, a senior Palestinian official told The Associated Press Wednesday.

The idea of shifting at least some executive powers to a prime minister was seen as a compromise that could provide a way out of the impasse created by the refusal of Israel and the United States to deal with Arafat directly. Last month, President Bush said Palestinians should choose new leaders "not compromised by terror."

Arafat has denounced Bush's call, but Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said he was now willing to share executive power. 

PHOTO CAPTION

(L) Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat talks during an interview with Egyptian TV at his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah Tuesday July 16, 2002 (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

(Top, R) A wounded man is brought into a Tel Aviv hospital following a bomb blast July 17, 2002. Two Palestinian suicide bombers blew themselves up in rapid succession in the heart Photo by Stringer/Israel/Reuters
- Jul 17 7:06 PM ET

(Bottom, R) President George W. Bush has condemned the latest Palestinian bombing in Israel and warned that 'terrorist acts' were also attacks on international efforts to bring about a Palestinian state. (Larry Downing/Reuters)
- Jul 17 11:28 PM