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Sheila MacVicar: Will bombings impact 'road map'?
(CNN) -- Two terror attacks rocked Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday, killing two Israelis and wounding at least a dozen people. CNN Senior International Correspondent Sheila MacVicar was in the West Bank, where she reported on the impact of the fatal bombings. MACVICAR: A few hours ago, a lone suicide bomber walked up to a bus stop [near the Jewish settlement of Ariel] ..., detonated his device, killing himself and one Israeli. Four others, we are told, are wounded. ... Now that was the second blast of [Tuesday] morning, the first in the six-week-long cease-fire between -- declared by the Palestinian militant factions. The first one [Tuesday] morning came in the Israeli city of Rosh Ha'ayin. It's about 12 miles west of where I am. A suicide bomber walked into a grocery store there, detonated his device, killing himself, one other person, and wounding, we are told, about 10 others. [There have been] some developments over the course of the last few minutes. Hamas -- the militant faction Hamas in a phone call to a CNN colleague in Gaza -- has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing here at Ariel. We already know from the [Israel Defense Forces] that both bombers are believed to have come from the Palestinian West Bank city of Nablus, a city that is under Israeli security control. ... [Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the blast in Rosh Ha'ayin.] ... Now we've also heard that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who has been out of the area in the Gulf States on a visit, is cutting short that trip and returning [Tuesday night] to Palestinian territory. In addition to that, we know that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be meeting a little later [Tuesday] with U.S. envoy William Burns. Of course, the big question is: What impact does this have on the U.S. administration's "road map" to peace? We heard from Prime Minister Sharon a short while ago that there could be no progress on the road map as long as the Palestinian Authority did not dismantle terror infrastructure, something they have been trying to push the U.S. administration to put pressure on the Palestinians to do. One immediate impact: A planned Palestinian prisoner release, which was to go ahead [Tuesday] has been canceled.
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