A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded Mediterranean beach restaurant yesterday, killing at least 18 people in one of the deadliest attacks in the past three years and raising the possibility Israel might take action against Yasser Arafat.
About 40 people were wounded in the attack on the Arab-owned Maxim Restaurant in the northern port city of Haifa, and TV reports said five children were among the dead.
First reports said the attacker shot dead the security guard at the entrance before setting off about 10 kilos of explosives inside the restaurant. Police said it remained unclear whether shots were fired.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which came on the Sabbath before Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
The deadliness of the attack raised the possibility that Israel could take action against Arafat, whom the Israeli Cabinet has threatened to "remove," implying either expulsion or assassination, without saying when it would take action. After the Sept. 11 decision, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suggested action would be taken against Arafat if there was another major suicide bombing with heavy casualties.
The explosion went off shortly after 2pm at Maxim Restaurant, near a major junction at the southern entrance to Haifa.
A motorist, identified only as Navon, said he was at the junction when he heard the blast.
"When I got to the area of the restaurant, we saw smoke all the glass had been blown out. I parked my car. We went in, about five or six of us and started to take the wounded out. In truth there was not much to take out. There were not a lot of wounded, just a lot of people strewn on the ground there was nothing to do, no way to help them," he said.
He said children were among the dead.
The blast blew out windows, and others were pockmarked by shrapnel. Walls inside were riddled with holes, wires hung down from the ceiling and clusters of pipes were exposed. Chunks were blown off pillars throughout the restaurant.
The attack came despite a blanket closure Israel had imposed Friday on the West Bank and Gaza Strip ahead of Yom Kippur, which begins at sundown today and ends at sundown Monday. Such closures are generally imposed during Jewish holidays because of increased concerns about attacks by Palestinian militants in such periods.
Yesterday's attack also came after Hamas declared that a security barrier Israel is building around the West Bank would not stop suicide bombers from reaching Israeli cities.
The militant group also said it would continue to send Palestinians to blow themselves up inside Israel.
"This wall will not protect the Zionist entity and will not stop the attacks of resistance and, God willing, the day will come when this wall will collapse as the Berlin wall collapsed," said a statement, signed by Hamas, posted on a pro-Hamas Web site late Friday night.
Earlier this week, the Israeli Cabinet approved a new phase of the barrier project that will add fences deep inside the West Bank to shield four large Jewish settlements. Palestinians and the US have opposed the path of the barrier, saying it would pre-empt peace agreements and unilaterally define the border of a Palestinian state.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS