Restaurant bomb kills 19 in Israel

By JUSTIN HUGGLER in JERUSALEM

At least 19 people were killed yesterday when a woman walked into a beachfront restaurant crowded with families in Haifa, on Israel's north coast, and detonated explosives strapped to her body.

Among the dead were at least three children. The suicide bombing, the first in more than three weeks, appeared timed to have the maximum horrific impact as Israelis prepared for Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, the holiest event in the Jewish religious calendar, which begins tonight.

There were immediate concerns last night that the Israeli government would now follow through on its threat to expel the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, potentially worsening the cycle of violence in the Middle East.

Police said they had found what they believed was the headless body of the bomber, a woman in her 20s, in the ruins of Maxim restaurant. She entered the restaurant, near the beaches of south Haifa, shortly after 2pm local time and set off a bomb the police believe was packed with nails to create as much carnage as possible. At least 56 people were injured, and six were in a serious condition last night.

"Suddenly we heard a tremendous explosion," said a witness, Navon Hai, who was outside when the bomb went off. "We saw smoke pour out of the restaurant and the windows shattered. There wasn't much we could do. Families were dead around the tables."

Maxim was a favourite with families on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, and the bomber would have seen children as she set off her explosives.

Itamar Chizik, the manager of Maccabi Haifa football club, was in the restaurant at the time, and several of the team's players were among the injured. "We were sitting with our sides towards the door, we didn't see who came in," he said. "We felt an explosion and then everyone around us was either wounded or dead ... The place was packed, like it is every Saturday."

The restaurant had a security guard, and it is not clear how the woman got past him. Guards have had considerable success at intercepting bombers, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, and there were unconfirmed reports that the bomber might have shot the security guard dead before entering, which would be a new tactic.

There were what appeared to be bullet holes in the windows, near the body of a man in a security guard's vest lying face down at the entrance. But other reports from the scene said there had been no shooting and that the holes in the windows were caused by nails from the bomb.

Among the dead were five Arabs. Haifa is one of the most mixed cities in Israel, with a large population of "Israeli Arabs" - Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. It is one of the few places in the country where Arabs and Jews mix socially, and many of the families in Maxim when the bomb exploded were Arab. The restaurant, owned by Arab and Jewish partners, was a symbol of Haifa's more relaxed atmosphere, and some saw the bombing as an attack on the very idea that Arabs and Jews can live together in peace. The Christian Arab owner was said yesterday to be too shocked to speak.

There were unconfirmed reports that the bomber was sent by Islamic Jihad from the West Bank town of Jenin, where a local leader was captured last week. The attacker reached Haifa despite a full Israeli military closure on the occupied territories for the days leading up to Yom Kippur, and the controversial new "separation fence" designed to stop suicide attacks.

The office of the Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmad Qureia, issued a statement last night calling for suicide bombings and other attacks to end. But a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Jonathan Peled, derided the statement as "too little and too late". He called for the authority to crack down on the militants, something Palestinians fear could cause civil war.

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