Carter target of bomb plot?

GAZA CITY —- Jimmy Carter was unaware of reports that Palestinian terrorists plotted to assassinate him with a roadside bomb in the Gaza Strip, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The reports apparently were baseless.

Carter went to Gaza City Tuesday to speak to graduating students from U.N.-run schools. After his arrival, five men, some wearing Hamas police uniforms, removed three large black disks and some wire from a sand dune next to a road Carter had used.

An officer at the scene told the AP the items were explosives, but police spokesman Islam Shahwan said later that an explosives unit had found nothing.

In an e-mail to the Journal-Constitution, Carter’s spokeswoman in Atlanta, Deanna Congileo, said, “President Carter ended his trip to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza today as originally planned and has departed to return home. We have no knowledge of a bomb plot against him. His visit to Gaza was without incident.”

In his remarks Carter criticized the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took control, saying Gazans “are treated more like animals than human beings.” But he also urged Palestinians to renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist.