A suicide bomber blew himself up Friday in a street cafe crowded with people dressed in costumes celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim. Police said three other people were killed and 47 wounded in the explosion.
The Muslim militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the nail-studded bomb. Yasser Ara-fat's Palestinian Authority condemned the explosion, the first after a yearlong lull in suicide bomb attacks.Israel responded by barring Palestinians from West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested he might suspend peace talks, saying, "We are not prepared to go on this way."
Among the injured was a 6-month-old girl.
"There was a powerful boom, glass flying everywhere and there was a lot of blood," said the cafe's shift manager, who gave his name as Roi. He sobbed hysterically, sitting on the sidewalk holding his head.
The blackened body of the assailant remained at the scene several hours after the attack, partially covered by a blanket. Israel TV said an ID card on him said he was from the West Bank village of Zurif near Hebron.
The blast scattered chairs, tables and umbrellas on a tree-lined boulevard just yards away from City Hall. Smoke rose from the charred wood and cloth umbrellas, and napkins and half-eaten plates of food were strewn about.
Israel and the Palestinians blamed each other for the violence.
"Jerusalem will not be restored by negotiations, but only with holy war, whatever the sacrifices," a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Ma-qad-meh, told a cheering crowd of 50,000 Friday in Khan Yunis at a Gaza Strip rally.
Palestinians have been furious with Netanyahu for his decision to break ground this week for a new Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, where Palestinians want to set up a future capital. "The terror of bulldozers led to the terror of explosives," said Ahmed Tibi, an adviser to Arafat.
Netanyahu blamed Arafat, saying the Palestinian leader had done nothing to correct an assumption by Islamic militants that they had a "green light" to carry out attacks.
Palestinians had denied those allegations, and U.S. officials earlier this week said they found no proof to back Netanyahu's claim.
Asked whether his decision to build the Jewish neighborhood might have contributed to the violence, Netanyahu said angrily: "I find that line of questioning obnoxious and immoral."
Dozens of Israeli soldiers threw tear gas canisters, then fired rubber bullets to keep the crowd away from Hebron's Jewish settler enclaves.
When protesters were only a few yards away from the settler compound of Beit Hadassah, soldiers fired live bullets in the air to keep them at bay. Israeli troops ordered settlers to stay indoors.
Israeli soldiers jumped an Israeli policeman in order to prevent him from firing his M-16 assault rifle.
"Now it is a war of the people, not of diplomacy. We want to teach Bibi (Netanyahu) a lesson that when he challenges an entire nation, he cannot win," stone-thrower Khalil Qawasmeh, 17, said.
The bombing was preceded by two days of riots in the West Bank.
Heavy clashes erupted Friday in Hebron and at the Jerusalem construction site, where bulldozers began work Tuesday. Israeli troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and at one point live ammunition to keep a crowd of Palestinians away. More than 30 Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation. An Israeli soldier was hit by a firebomb, and his uniform caught fire.
The army imposed a curfew on the village of Zurif, where the bomber was believed to come from. Dozens of Palestinians hurled stones at four jeeps driving into the village.
Netanyahu warned that Israel would not be frightened by terror.
"Whoever thinks that those who kill children will frighten us doesn't know us," Netanyahu said. "We will deal with these murderers, each and every one of them."
Arafat called Israeli President Ezer Weizman to express condolences and his Cabinet secretary, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, condemned the bombing.
A waiter at the Apropo Coffee House on Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Boulevard said he saw a man walking into the patio just before Friday's explosion, carrying two bags and moving between tables.
"He looked strange," the waiter, Gad Ben-Tzur, told The Associated Press. "I was trying to pick up an order. A second later, there was a tremendous flash and he blew up."
In the chaos, two preschoolers, one dressed as a clown and the other as a cowboy for Purim, ran away from the scene in shock. The holiday celebrates the deliverance of the Jews of ancient Persia from a plot to slaughter them.
A witness said 20 or 30 people were near the man when the explosion took place at 1:45 p.m..
Police helicopters circled above the scene and police dogs searched neighboring buildings in case other bombs had been planted. Wounded people were treated on the sidewalk.
During last year's Purim holiday, a suicide bomb at Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Center shopping mall killed 13 Israelis, many of them children.
Last spring, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for four suicide bombings.
In the West Bank town of Nablus, a Hamas leader, Hamed Bitawi, told 10,000 supporters Friday afternoon: "This is the only language the occupiers understand, the language of martyrdom," said the Hamas leader.