Sunday April 22, 12:11 AM    
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Bombers Destroy American School in Gaza Strip*

Masked gunmen stormed the Gaza Strip's only private school early
Saturday and detonated a series of bombs inside causing serious damage,
witnesses and security sources said.

The gunmen overpowered and then bound three security guards but there
were no casualties in the assault on the American school in Beit Lahiya,
an interior ministry official told AFP.

The gunmen took the guards with them when they made their getaway but
released them an hour later.

"We are going to carry out a thorough investigation to find those
reponsible," added the official, who asked not to be identified.

An AFP correspondent saw extensive damage to classrooms and assembly
halls in the school.

Principal Iyad al-Saraj vowed that the "cowardly crime" would not
prevent the school from providing its 150 pupils with an education,
accusing the bombers of wanting to "leave the Palestinian people in
ignorance".

"We will continue teaching in our school even if we have to do so under
canvas," he said.

A large security presence was visible outside the school after the
attack but Saraj accused the Palestinian Authority of "failing to take
the necessary decisions to resolve the security chaos" gripping the Gaza
Strip.

The principal said he himself had been targeted by gunfire in the past
but that there had been no threats against the school.

The official said police were considering a possible link with a wave of
attacks on internet cafes in the Gaza Strip over the past month that has
seen around 30 targeted.

Most of the attacks have been claimed by an extremist group called "The
Swords of Truth," which says the cafes offer young Palestinians access
to pornographic websites.

A library run by a Protestant Christian group was also extensively
damaged in a pre-dawn bomb attack in Gaza City last Sunday.

A former minister from the Islamist movement Hamas, Alaadin al-Aaraj,
told teachers during a tour of the wreckage that the "shameful attack
has no connection with Islam."

Opened in 2000 in coordination with the Cairo-based Educational Services
Overseas Limited, the school once had a number of expatriate children
among its pupils and staff.

But since early 2006 the Gaza Strip has been hit by a wave of abductions
of Westerners and nearly all expatriates have left.

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston remains in captivity more than a month
after being kindapped as he drove home from his office in Gaza City.