A truck bomber blew himself up at a northern Gaza border crossing with Israel and a demonstration at a another crossing turned violent Thursday, after ceasefire talks in Egypt ended inconclusively, according to dpa. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the explosion occurred at the entrance to the Erez crossing north of Gaza City, on the Palestinian side. No-one besides the suicide bomber was killed, she said, but the blast caused serious damage. She could not immediately give more details, but Israeli media reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire at the truck as it approached the crossing, forcing it to stop at a distance of some 50 metres and to blow up prematurely, preventing a larger number of casualties. Hours later, hundreds of supporters of the radical Islamic Hamas movement gathered at the Karni crossing, south-east of Gaza City, answering calls in mosques to protest Israel's tight blockade of the Strip. An Israeli military spokesman said several gunmen opened fire at Israeli soldiers guarding the crossing from within the crowd. The troops returned fire at one of them who carrying and aiming an anti-tank missile. Palestinian medical officials said a 22-year-old demonstrator was killed and at least 17 wounded, some of them seriously. The Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant off-shoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, earlier claimed joint responsibility for the truck bombing at the Erez crossing in northern Gaza. They carried out the "martyrdom operation" in response to the "daily crimes" committed by Israel against the Palestinians and to reiterate that the Palestinian resistance against the occupation would continue. The attack comes as Egyptian-led talks on a possible truce in Gaza ended inconclusively. A Hamas delegation returned Thursday from three days of talks in Cairo, where they heard Israel's response to the truce proposal from Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, who continues to serve as de-facto premier of Gaza despite his dismissal by Abbas following last June's Gaza take-over by Hamas, vowed Thursday that the Palestinians would not give away a truce for a "low" price. "The Palestinians ... will not stick to it (a truce) unless Israel lifts the siege, reopens the crossings and stops the aggression," Haniya told a religious conference in Gaza City. He reiterated that Hamas would not recognize Israel and would continue its armed struggle, but also that the group was "ready to restore the national unity" and "is not seeking to establish a separate entity in the Gaza Strip." Osama Hamdan, a member of the Hamas delegation, told Hamas' Al-Aqsa Television in Gaza, that the talks were deadlocked because Israel rejected Hamas' demand to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip as part of the truce. Israel wanted the deal to encompass only "calm for calm" - an end to Israeli attacks in return for an end to Palestinian attacks, he said. But another Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, told reporters that "the return of the delegation doesn't mean that the (truce) talks have ended." Meanwhile, a 62-year-old Palestinian farmer was killed in the central Gaza Strip, east of the al-Bureij camp near the border with Israel. Palestinians said he was killed by an Israeli tank shell, but Israel denied shelling the area. Militants in Gaza have recently stepped up their attacks on the Strip's border crossings with Israel. They have said they want to "break" the Israeli blockade, but Israel has charged that attacks on the crossings only make it more difficult to keep them open. It shut down both the Erez crossing in the north and the Suffa crossing in the south immediately after Thursday morning's suicide bombing. The Suffa crossing would, however, reopen later in the day to allow through humanitarian aid, it said. Late last month, Hamas' armed wing carried out a synchronized, double attack on the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings, using three booby-trapped cars, and injuring 16 Israeli soldiers.
