EILAT (Israel), Jan 29: A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a bakery in Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat on Monday, killing three people in the first militant attack in the Jewish state in nine months.

The bombing came amid tentative attempts to jumpstart the Middle East peace process and was condemned by the European Union and the White House.

The Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed joint responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out by 21-year-old Mohammed Faisal al-Siksek from Gaza City.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed that Israel would continue a “battle without respite against the terrorists and their commanders.” The powerful blast ripped through the tiny Lehamim Bakery in a residential neighbourhood of Eilat at 0740 GMT, shattering windows and shaking nearby houses in what police initially said was an accident.

“I heard a very loud blast. My whole house shook,” said Miriam Bendiza, 70, whose house stands just in front of the bakery.

Three people were killed in addition to the bomber, who had gone into the bakery carrying the explosives in a backpack, police said.

Rescuers dressed in all-white suits collected human remains outside the bakery hours after the blast, which destroyed the inside of the building and blew out windows of a car parked nearby. A helicopter hovered above the city.

It was the first attack inside Israel since April 17, 2006, when 11 people were killed in Tel Aviv in a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic Jihad.

The ruling Hamas movement, which has not claimed an attack in Israel for nearly two years, said the bombing was a “natural response to the occupier’s crimes against our people ... in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” “It is the Zionist enemy who is responsible for the deteriorating situation among the Palestinians. The resistance is entitled to defend the Palestinian people,” said Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan.

The bombing came against a backdrop of the deadliest factional clashes between Hamas and president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party in a year, with 32 people killed in internecine bloodletting in the past four days.

Palestinians are in the grip of a major economic crisis triggered by a Western aid freeze imposed after Hamas won an election a year ago.

Security was stepped up as Israeli authorities — which have for years imposed strict restrictions on Palestinians travelling into the Jewish state — investigated how the bomber managed to go to Eilat, which lies on the southern-most tip of Israel on the border with Egypt and Jordan.

A spokesman for the Islamic Jihad said the bomber had travelled to Eilat via Jordan, but Amman denied the report, saying the bomber had never entered the kingdom.

Roadblocks were set up outside Eilat and Israel announced that the Taba border crossing into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula was closed.—AFP