Israel Strikes Swiftly After Bombing

By Daren Fonda

Ever since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, Israel has braced for attacks that come in the hours surrounding Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Among the steps planned for this year was a ban on Palestinians entering Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But whatever sense of security Israelis may have felt was shattered on Saturday when a suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowded restaurant in Haifa, killing at least 19 people. The bomber--identified by the radical group Islamic Jihad as Hanadi Jaradat, from the West Bank city of Jenin--was believed to have acted in revenge for the killing of her brother and cousin by Israeli soldiers in June. She had apparently snuck into Israel through a section of the Green Line as yet unfenced. An Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza, Abdullah Shami, said the strike already showed the failure of the "racist isolation security fence." But the bombing is likely to spur Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into speeding up construction of the barrier, despite opposition from Washington.

Within hours of the attack, Israel fired missiles at targets in the Gaza Strip connected to the radical group Hamas, and attacked what it said was an Islamic Jihad training base in Syria. Several Israeli Cabinet ministers again urged Sharon to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from the West Bank. Arafat, for his part, condemned the suicide bombing. But Israel's impatience with the continued violence has left Arafat's fate, along with that of peace talks, hanging by an ever more precarious thread. --By Daren Fonda. Reported by Matt Rees/Jerusalem

With reporting by Matt Rees/Jerusalem