Suicide attack kills 19

HAIFA, Israel — At least 19 people were killed and 55 others injured when a female Palestinian suicide bomber set off an explosion Saturday in a landmark beachfront restaurant packed with a lunch crowd at the start of a long holiday weekend, according to Israeli police.

Hours later, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at an empty house near the beach in Gaza City and at another belonging to an Islamic Jihad leader in the Boureij refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The bombing at the Maxim restaurant, which is co-owned by Arab and Jewish families, renewed debate among Israeli officials over potential action against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and raised questions about the effectiveness of a fence that Israel is building to separate the West Bank and Israel. The northern section of the fence east of Haifa has been completed.

Among those killed were a 2-month-old infant, three other children ages 1, 5, and 6, a newlywed couple and four Arabs who were residents of Israel, according to preliminary identifications by medical and police officials.

"This restaurant was a microcosm of Haifa society. Jews, Christians and Arabs worked together in this restaurant for many years," said Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, standing several yards from the blackened and gutted eatery, which overlooks the Mediterranean on the edge of this northern port city. "The suicide bomber tried to jeopardize the co-existence we’ve worked so hard to build up."

The attack, on the eve of the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, prompted senior Israeli officials to ratchet up threats of retaliation against Arafat, and elicited sharp condemnations from his newly nominated prime minister, Ahmed Qureia.

The Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in statements issued to television networks and wire services and identified the bomber as Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat, a woman from Jenin who was in her twenties and had recently graduated from law school in Jordan. The statement said Jaradat had watched as Israeli troops shot and killed her brother and a cousin, both Islamic Jihad supporters, at their family home in June.

Associates of Jaradat’s said that since the killings, she had become increasingly religious, reading from the Koran twice a day and fasting regularly, according to Palestinian media accounts.

Saturday at 2:20 p.m., Jaradat strode into the restaurant, which was filled with patrons enjoying late lunches on a warm fall afternoon, without rousing the suspicions of either the guard at the front door or diners, according to police and witnesses.

"The restaurant was full," said Col. Danny Kuffler, a northern district commander in the Israeli National Police. "The bomber passed the security guard at the entrance, went inside, turned on the explosive device and all the restaurant exploded."