Bomb Kills At Least 19 In Israel Suicide Attack in Haifa Hits Popular Jewish-Arab Eatery By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, October 5, 2003; Page A01 HAIFA, Israel, Oct. 4 -- At least 19 people were killed and 50 others injured when a female Palestinian suicide bomber set off an explosion today in a landmark beachfront restaurant packed with a lunch crowd at the start of a long holiday weekend, according to Israeli police. The bombing at the Maxim restaurant, which is run by Arab and Jewish families, renewed debate among Israeli officials over possible action against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and raised questions about the effectiveness of a massive fence Israel is building to separate the West Bank and Israel. The northern section of the fence east of Haifa has been completed. "It was an awful explosion," said Salim Khouri, 40, an Arab waiter who has worked at the restaurant for seven years. "I was on my way to the kitchen and turned around. The tables, the chairs -- everything -- were turned upside down. Children were killed. There was one without a head. It was a horror." Among those killed were a 2-month-old infant, three children ages 1, 5, and 6, a newlywed couple and four Arab Israelis, 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 coexistence we've worked so hard to build up." About 12 percent of the 280,000 residents of Haifa are Arab, the mayor said. The attack, coming just before the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, prompted Israeli officials to ratchet up threats of retaliation against Arafat and elicited sharp condemnations from his newly nominated prime minister, Ahmed Qureia. [Shortly after midnight, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at at least two Palestinian targets in Gaza City, including an empty home near the beach and a house belonging to an Islamic Jihad leader in the Boureij refugee camp in central Gaza, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.] President Bush, who has watched peace efforts collapse under recent weeks of continuing Palestinian suicide bombings and targeted killings of militant leaders by Israel, today said, "This despicable attack underscores once again the responsibility of Palestinian authorities to fight terror, which remains the foremost obstacle to achieving the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security." The bombing was the fourth major attack in Haifa since the Palestinian uprising against Israel began slightly more than three years ago. Fifteen people died in a bombing at the Matza restaurant in the city 18 months ago, and a total of 32 people were killed in two bus attacks, the most recent six months ago. The radical group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for today's attack in statements issued to television networks and wire services identifying the bomber as Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat, 29, a woman from Jenin who recently graduated from law school in Jordan. The statement said Jaradat watched as Israeli troops shot and killed her brother, Salah, and a cousin, both Islamic Jihad supporters, at the 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. At 2:20 p.m. today, Jaradat strode into the Maxim restaurant, where patrons were enjoying a late lunch on a warm fall afternoon, without arousing 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." "Everything around us was destroyed," said Gideon Zilberstein, 63, an accountant who was lunching with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. "People were lying on the floor. Next to us was a small girl who probably died." "All my friends hit the ground," said Khouri, the waiter, who was undergoing treatment at Carmel Medical Center here for pain in his ears and stomach. "Two were nearby and were not moving. They were bleeding from the mouth. I pushed them three or four times. They didn't give any sign of being alive. I turned around and saw people on the floor without heads, without faces. It was something terrible." The dead included five members of one family, the Haaretz newspaper reported. They were identified as Bruria Zer-Aviv, 54; Bezalel Zer-Aviv, 30; Keren Zer-Aviv, 29; Liran Zer-Aviv, 4; and Noya Zer-Aviv, 1, from the Kibbutz Yagur, near Haifa. The restaurant is owned by a Jewish family and managed by an Arab family who had been in partnership for nearly 40 years, according to family members at the scene. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45087-2003Oct4?language=printer
My thoughts, best wishes and heart goes out to the families of the innocent men, women, and most of all children who died in this shameless act..
