May 28, 2002	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 15,1423

PETAH TIQVAH (Israel), May 27: Two Israelis, including a three-year-old girl, were killed on Monday when a Palestinian suicide bomber struck a shopping mall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tiqvah on Monday, officials said.

The identity of the second victim was not immediately known.

The blast, the first to hit this suburb northwest of Tel Aviv, in 20 months of the Palestinian uprising, injured more than 20 people.

Israeli television showed pictures of a child’s pushchair, blackened by the blast but still intact outside the small cafe where the bomber blew himself to pieces.

“I hear a huge explosion — the whole town heard it,” one man told Channel Two television.

“I went to the scene and there were wounded everywhere — someone with their leg blown off, one with his stomach ripped open,” he added.

Israeli public radio said police had sealed the area off and were searching for a possible second suicide bomber in the area.—AFP