Sharon cancels US trip after double Jerusalem bombing

By: Ahmad Hammadi

JERUSALEM: After a deadly double martyrdom-seeking bombing on Sunday rocked Jerusalem, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon called off a crucial trip to United States where he was due to hold talks with US President Bush, and the army clamped a curfew on the West Bank city of Ramallah.

At least seven people were killed and nearly two-dozen injured, some of them in critical condition, when a blast blew apart a bus just before the morning rush hour in the French Hill neighborhood in annexed east Jerusalem. While the second bomb attack took place in Aram, a Palestinian village just north of French Hill. The two bombers also kissed martyrdom.

The curfew order in Ramallah that is only five kilometers from the French Hill neighborhood was shouted to the population by Israeli patrols through loudspeakers.

Separately, Israeli troops martyred a Palestinian in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis on Sunday, whereas two Palestinians were martyred by the soldiers on Saturday night in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Shearei Tekvah.

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