Suicide Bombing Kills 13; Israel Tightens Siege on Arafat HQ
By Gady Afriat
Reuters
HAIFA, Israel (March 31) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, as Israeli troops tightened a siege on Yasser Arafat's headquarters.
The blast, the fourth suicide attack since the Jewish Passover holiday began last Wednesday, tore gaping holes in the roof of a restaurant frequented by Jews and Arabs and raised fears of all-out war after 18 months of conflict.
Two hours later, a suspected suicide bomber wounded at least four people at a Jewish settlement in the West Bank as Israel's government met to weigh further action to halt Palestinian attacks after ringing Arafat's compound in Ramallah on Friday.
Witnesses said at least two people were killed and six of Arafat's guards wounded in the latest fighting in Ramallah, which follows 18 months of tit-for-tat violence since Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation.
Violence raged on despite an Easter Sunday appeal for peace by Pope John Paul and a call by the United Nations, including the United States, for Israel to withdraw troops from Ramallah and other West Bank cities. Israel ignored the U.N. appeal.
''It seems that war has been declared on peace,'' the Pope said in his Easter Sunday message to the world, calling for an end to the ''dramatic spiral of abuse of power and killings that bloody the Holy Land.''
The Haifa explosion tore off the restaurant roof and spewed debris across a nearby parking lot. The wounded were stretchered away to ambulances through the wreckage.
''I was outside when I heard a huge explosion. I went into the restaurant and saw some of the people burning up, some already dead. I began taking out the wounded, with a few of them I had to put out the flames first,'' said Shimon, a witness.
ISLAMIC MILITANTS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY
The Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas said a 22-year-old resident of the refugee camp in the northern West Bank town of Jenin carried out the attack on its behalf to avenge the Israeli attacks on Ramallah and elsewhere.
Police said 13 people were killed and 33 wounded. Government spokesman David Baker said Israel would leave no stone unturned to ''stop this campaign of terror against us.''
Israeli troops encircling Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah earlier on Sunday traded fire with his guards.
Arafat, his pistol at his side in a building meters away from the shooting, has said he would rather die than surrender to a siege which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says is intended to isolate the Palestinian leader and end suicide attacks.
Palestinian officials said Israel was trying to storm the building where Arafat was holed up. Israel denied trying to enter the building.
More than 40 international peace activists later marched past the Israeli tanks with their hands up and went into Arafat's headquarters, where they were received by the Palestinian president.
They said he looked calm, and electricity and water supplies had resumed. Arafat said he had sought international help in a telephone call with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
''I told Colin Powell that we need the urgent sending of international forces to stop this aggression and military escalation against our people, against our cities, against our towns, against our refugee camps,'' Arafat said in English.
SEVEN PALESTINIAN POLICEMEN ARRESTED
Israeli soldiers conducted house-to-house searches, arresting at least 25 young men who were taken away with their hands tied behind their backs. Seven policemen were arrested, a Reuters correspondent on the scene said.
Smashed cars were strewn across the city, pavements were chewed up and at least 50 tanks had taken up positions in the center of Ramallah, nine miles north of Jerusalem. Troops fired at water tanks and water gushed out.
The army cut off water and electricity to Arafat's compound but said on Saturday it had let Palestinian ambulances deliver food, bottled water and candles. Rubble lay across the compound and walls of some buildings were blackened.
Israel launched its onslaught against Arafat early on Friday after a suicide bombing that killed 22 Israelis in a luxury hotel in the Mediterranean coastal resort of Netanya at the start of the Passover holiday last week.
That suicide bombing was the bloodiest since the start of a conflict that had, before Sunday's suicide attack, killed at least 1,127 Palestinians and 384 Israelis since September 2000. The nationality of the Haifa victims was not immediately clear.
Suicide bombings injured 32 people in a Tel Aviv restaurant on Saturday night and killed two people at a supermarket in Jerusalem on Friday. Another suspected suicide bomber injured four people at the Efrat settlement in the West Bank on Sunday.
The new violence contributed to a more than five percent fall in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's main indices on Sunday.
The Israeli siege has stirred protests in European cities and indignation across the Arab world. The Palestinian suicide attacks have also been widely condemned abroad.
U.S. President George W. Bush placed the onus for the latest violence on the Palestinians. He made no call for troops to withdraw from Arafat's compound but urged Israel's government to consider the consequences of its actions.
Reuters 10:57 03-31-02
Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. |
