Mideast Bloodshed Hardens Resolve to Fight

JERUSALEM —  Israel was raked by another day of violence Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded Tel Aviv cafe, a police sergeant was killed stopping two would-be attackers from entering the country and Lebanese guerrillas fired mortar rounds at a military outpost in a disputed border area in the north.

If there had been any hope that the latest round of bloodletting would give either side pause, that quickly vanished when Israelis and Palestinians pointed to the day’s events as a reason to strengthen their resolve and press forward with the fight.

The anger was palpable outside the scene of the third suicide bombing to strike Israel in four days.

“Kill Arafat!” chanted spectators who gathered near the charred remains of My Coffee Shop, a popular gathering spot on Allenby Street in central Tel Aviv. Referring to the 1993 peace accords, they shouted, “Bring the Oslo criminals to justice!”

It was about 9:30 p.m., the Jewish Sabbath had ended, and the streets of Tel Aviv were teeming with people. Despite 18 months of violence, life continues to go on in Israel, and Allenby Street was the center of it, the hippest cafe scene in the country’s most cosmopolitan city. Cafes, pizzerias and kiosks were bustling with people.

My Coffee Shop was packed with customers, some of whom had traveled from Jerusalem eager for a night out and hoping that Tel Aviv would be safer. Music was playing when a young man walked into the center of the cafe and detonated himself.

He was the only one killed. But the devastation left 32 injured, five of them critically. Glass showered the street outside. Chairs and fixtures burst into flames.

Al Aqsa Strikes Again

Eran Katri was sitting outside quietly chatting with a friend when suddenly there was a blast--then silence, then a shower of glass and blood.

“It felt like a daydream, but then the blood began to flow and I saw people lying on the ground shaking,” Katri said. “I wouldn’t wish this experience to my enemies. To be honest, my friends and I were planning a trip together, but now I realize this is not the time for trips, since we are in a time of war and we must protect ourselves.”

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack. Al Aqsa, which is affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, has staged increasingly brazen and lethal strikes inside Israel.

The group identified the suicide bomber--or martyr, as they call him--as Muhanen Ibrahim Salahat, 23, from the northern West Bank town of Nablus.

The attack came even as Israeli tanks and forces had Arafat under siege in Ramallah and after soldiers had spent the day systematically searching and arresting Palestinian men in the West Bank city. The message to Israel seemed clear: Its forces cannot stop militants from entering the country.

Israel heard the message and vowed to press even harder. A call-up of 20,000 reservists, the largest mobilization since Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, was expected to continue today.

“This is another suicide attack, and we are facing more such attacks,” said Gideon Ezra, the deputy minister for internal security. “Therefore, we must prevent the entrance of such attackers by cutting off fuel supplies, preventing cars from traveling freely--including cars with Israeli license plates.”

Intelligence officials said another suicide attack was thwarted Saturday--but at a cost. In Baqa al Gharbiya, an Israeli Arab town, police stopped a vehicle at a checkpoint as it was headed to the Sharon region along the coast.

Deadly Shootout

First Sgt. Maj. Konstantin Zanielov, 23, was killed in a shootout with Palestinians in the car--identified as Fathi Abed Gawad 21, and Majdi Ameiri, 18. Police said the men were on their way to stage a suicide attack. Both Palestinians were killed in the gun battle.

Israel also sent tanks back into Beit Jala, a West Bank village, after Palestinians fired a mortar shell into Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem. No one was injured in the attack on Gilo.

As if to remind Israel that Palestinian militant groups are not its only enemy, the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon fired machine guns and mortars at military posts in the disputed Shabaa Farms area.

Israel says the land was captured from Syria in 1967 and thus is not part of any Israeli-Lebanese border dispute. Hezbollah insists that the vacant pasture is Lebanese territory and must be returned, a position disputed by the United Nations.

Israeli warplanes retaliated by firing missiles at suspected Hezbollah targets near Lebanese border towns. But the response was limited, and Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that the government had no intention of reacting any further.

“We have no interest in reacting. We have no interest in opening up another front,” he said in an interview with Israel’s Channel Two television.

In Tel Aviv, the nighttime explosion turned out to be far less lethal than emergency officials had feared. Ambulances were called into the city from the surrounding region and crowded Allenby Street.

Tel Aviv is a vibrant city, one that has managed to maintain an aura of normality despite the repeated and deadly attacks that have occurred there since the current Palestinian intifada against Israeli rule began. A suicide attack outside a disco last June killed the bomber and 21 mostly young people.

But the persistence of the attacks, and the undeniable reality that no one is completely safe, is wearing through the veneer that people have built around themselves.

Tali Doron, 46, lives in a suburb of Tel Aviv. Her parents were pioneers, early residents of Israel. She has experienced nearly every war and conflict that confronted the Jewish state and served as an officer in its military.

“The Israelis are tough,” she said Saturday night after watching news reports about the latest suicide bombing. “We are trying to do everyday things. We were born in an abnormal situation. . . . I think, in some way, we are survivors.”

But now she has a son in the army and a 17-year-old daughter, and the nature of the conflict is strange and scary. “It is a different type of war that my parents had to experience,” she said. “There wasn’t terror, like we have today. You heard a siren, you went to the shelter. You didn’t have to be afraid to walk on the street. Now it is much tougher.”

Outside the smoldering remains of My Coffee Shop, a witness who identified himself only as David said: “I am going straight home--I’m buying a plane ticket and getting out of here. Right now, every place is safer than here. I don’t want to be killed.”

In response to the explosion, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office issued a statement. The essence? The fight will continue “using all means possible.”