Suicide bomber attacks near Sharon residence

JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian suicide bomber transformed a crowded cafe into a mass of maimed bodies and upturned, blood-covered furniture Saturday night, killing at least 12 people in an attack across the street from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's walled compound. By this morning, Israel had destroyed Yasser Arafat's seaside office in Gaza and some ministers were calling for all-out war.

The compound, where Arafat received world leaders and held many news conferences, was empty at the time of the attack. Arafat himself has been trapped in the West Bank city of Ramallah by Israeli forces for more than three months.

Witnesses in Gaza City described a massive explosion that shook walls and broke windows around the neighborhood, as the building itself collapsed.

Day of death

The retaliatory attack came at the end of a day of carnage on both sides; 14 Israelis and six Palestinians died by nightfall.

The bloodshed ranged from a Palestinian gun-and-grenade rampage on the Mediterranean seafront that killed a 9-month-old Israeli girl, to the shooting deaths of two Palestinians, including a 15-year-old girl, in the densely packed refugee camps near Bethlehem.

There was a flurry of peace moves in Western and Arab capitals during the day Saturday, but after the two Palestinian attacks some Israeli Cabinet ministers began calling for all-out war.

"We must keep up the attacks by land, sea and air until they ask for a cease-fire," Interior Minister Eli Yishai told Israel TV as he inspected the remains of the Moment cafe in Jerusalem. "We must not stop the attacks of the closures until they reach the situation that the civilians there ask their leaders to draw the right conclusions."

Sharon called his senior ministers together for consultations before the regular weekly Cabinet session this morning, Israel TV reported. Several ministers called for stiff action.

In the Jerusalem bombing, the assailant walked into the cafe, which is frequented by young Israelis, and detonated explosives, said Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy. Sharon was not at the residence in a central Jerusalem neighborhood.

"There was a huge explosion, simply atomic," said one of the cafe's patrons, who only gave his first name, Eran.

In competing claims, the militant Islamic group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Brigrades, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, both said they were responsible for the bombing.