JERUSALEM - A Palestinian suicide bomber has killed 11 people and blown himself up in a crowded Jerusalem cafe near Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence.
Israel responded by destroying Yasser Arafat's Gaza headquarters.
The United States condemned the new violence and said it underlined the importance of a mission planned to the region by its Middle East envoy, Anthony Zinni, to try to prevent more than 17 months of bloodshed plunging into all-out war.
The carnage showed no sign of abating later today, as a Palestinian gunman shot and wounded two Israelis guarding a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip before he was shot dead.
In Jerusalem, the suicide bomber from the Islamic militant group Hamas struck after the Jewish Sabbath ended on Saturday night. The attack came just hours after two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israelis, one of them a baby girl, in a shooting spree in the coastal city of Netanya.
Twenty-year-old Fouad Hurani detonated the bomb as he stood in a queue of people waiting for a table at the trendy Moment Cafe about 100m from Sharon's official walled residence. He was blown to pieces with those around him.
The blast covered the floor with body parts, pools of blood and hundreds of nails and metal screws Hurani had packed into his bomb to deadly effect. Some walls were charred, and beer and water bottles stood intact at some of the tables.
"There was a blast that was simply atomic," a witness told Israel Radio, adding that about 50 people had been in the cafe.
Blaming Arafat for the violence, Israel responded swiftly by carrying out the fiercest strike in 17 months of conflict on the Palestinian President's headquarters and security compound in densely populated Gaza City.
Palestinian security sources said helicopters slammed 30 missiles into Arafat's offices.
He was not there because Israeli forces have for three months confined him to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he has another office.
More than 1000 Palestinians and more than 300 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation in September 2000 after peace talks stalled.
In Netanya, the gunmen sprayed fire at people out for an evening stroll after the Jewish Sabbath and hurled a grenade into a hotel lobby before police and armed bystanders gave chase and killed them.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, said it carried out the Netanya attack to avenge Israeli Army raids on Palestinian refugee camps and other targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Hamas said it carried out the Jerusalem blast to avenge Israeli "massacres".
* Israeli forces have rounded up hundreds of Palestinian men at Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank and moved them to an Army base.
It was the first mass round-up since raids on West Bank refugee camps began 10 days ago in a military offensive that Sharon says is aimed at smashing bases used by gunmen and bombers for attacks on Israelis.
Palestinian officials put the number of detainees at 640 and accused Israel of seeking to terrorise the population and said most fighters at the camp had slipped the dragnet.
- REUTERS
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Suicide bomber kills 11, Israel blasts Arafat HQ
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