5 Hurt in Palestinian School Bombing
A bomb exploded in a Palestinian school near the West Bank town of Hebron on Tuesday, injuring five students in what the Palestinians said was an attack by Jewish extremists.

The main Jewish settlers organization condemned the blast. The bomb went off near a water cooler in the courtyard of the Ziff secondary school south of Hebron, military officials said. A second explosive device was found and safely detonated by Israeli explosives experts.

Palestinian officials said they believed Israeli militants planted the explosives.

Earlier this year, police uncovered a plot by Israeli extremists to plant a car bomb near a Palestinian school in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem. Several people were arrested, but they have not been prosecuted. In March, a bomb went off in another Palestinian school in east Jerusalem, injuring a teacher and four children. Jewish militants claimed responsibility for that attack, but no one has been arrested.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said he held the Israeli government responsible for Tuesday's bombing. Israel ``failed to bring any of those who kill Palestinians in cold blood to justice,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops arrested 23 Palestinians and destroyed what the army said were nine machines for making weapons during a raid on the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Soldiers have been carrying out almost nightly raids of Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza, searching for wanted militants and weapons workshops.

Palestinian security officials said soldiers searched about 60 houses, destroyed two metal workshops and damaged a car garage and several textile and plastics factories.

Troops also blew up the two-story house of a man whose son, a Hamas activist, was killed eight months ago during an attack on an Israeli settlement near Khan Younis. Sixteen people were left homeless, Palestinian officials said.

In the Askar refugee camp near Nablus in the West Bank, Israeli troops enforcing a curfew fired from tanks toward a main street, witnesses said. Three students were lightly hurt by shrapnel. The army said it was checking the report.
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