Suicide bomber from Gaza kills 3

A Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bakery in the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat yesterday, killing himself and three people, police said. It was the first suicide bombing in Israel in nine months and the first ever to hit Eilat, Israel's southernmost city.

A spokesman for Hamas, the radical Islamic group that controls the Palestinian parliament and Cabinet, praised the bombing as a "natural response" to Israeli policies a position likely to complicate efforts to end a crippling aid boycott imposed by the international community.

The morning attack struck Eilat, a normally tranquil Red Sea resort located at Israel's southern tip near the Jordanian and Egyptian borders. Separated from Israel's largest cities by hundreds of kilometers of desert, it has been largely immune from Israeli-Palestinian fighting and is a popular getaway for Israelis.