JERUSALEM -- As a teen-ager Clara Rosenberger was one of few members of her family to survive Auschwitz. Now, nearly six decades later, a Palestinian suicide bombing has left her paralyzed from the waist down.

"Once was enough. I never thought it would happen again," Rosenberger, 72, said from her hospital bed. "It happened."

Twenty-eight people were killed in the March 27 blast in Netanyu, the deadliest of more than 50 suicide attacks on Israelis in the last year and a half.

The victims include the ultra-Orthodox coming out of synagogues, stylish young people sipping lattes and beers at cafes, soldiers who leave voice mail messages saying they are safe moments before they die in battle.

The dead have been Jewish settlers living in disputed enclaves near Palestinian cities, young Russian-speaking immigrants waiting to get into a disco, migrant laborers from China and Romania, and Arab citizens of Israel.

At least six Holocaust survivors were killed in the hotel bombing last month that paralyzed Rosenberger and brought back the horror of the Nazi death camp where she spent more than year.

Forty pounds of explosives packed with nails ripped through a hotel banquet hall in the coastal city of Netanya where 250 people were eating a ritual Seder meal to mark the start of the Jewish Passover holiday.

Wave of bombings

That attack was part of a wave of bombings that prompted Israel's huge offensive in the West Bank aimed at crushing the militant networks behind the terror attacks. Yet there have been eight actual or attempted suicide bombings since the military's "Operation Defensive Shield" began March 29.

Last Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew apart a bus near the coastal city of Haifa, killing eight Israelis, including the 18-year-old niece of Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry.

Noa Shlomo was a border policewoman who had just finished basic training and was serving at the Allenby Bridge border crossing with Jordan.

"I felt devastated," Lancry told The Associated Press. "I spoke time and again in the U.N. Security Council about suicide bombings. This time it hits you directly."

Lancry said he last saw his niece in March as she was returning to duty.

"Maybe 30 seconds after her departure, her mother told me about her great concern when Noa had to ride in public buses with the threat of suicide bombings," Lancry said. "Unfortunately this was a harbinger of the terror that proved to be true."

Since fighting began in September 2000, 468 people have died on the Israeli side and more than 1,500 on the Palestinian side. As well as Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, many Israeli soldiers have died in fighting.

Einan Sharabi, a 32-year-old reserve soldier, was killed April 4 in fighting the Jenin refugee camp, where the Israeli offensive faced its fiercest resistance.

'Everything is OK'

"Don't worry about me, everything is OK. Tell everyone that I'm OK," he said in a message to his sister, Tza'ala, hours before he died.

Most Israelis support the military offensive as a necessary measure to deal with the wave of suicide bombings. But while Israelis often say terrorism must be confronted, polls suggest many are not optimistic it can be ended -- or that the peace process can soon be restarted. Given this dismal outlook, it's not surprising that at least some say they are prepared to leave the country.

Efrat Ravid, 20, was wounded in a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem cafe in March that killed 11 Israelis.

The blast crushed the bone in her thigh and sliced her femoral artery. A screw dug in near her heart, causing her lungs to bleed. Surgeons operated on her for 14 hours.

When she woke up, she was drugged and unable to speak or move for a week. Now she spends her days lifting weights, her right thigh held together by a painful metal frame.

When not in physical therapy, she cruises around the hospital in her wheelchair or sits for hours next to a fish pond in the garden. Ravid, who worked as a waitress, is bored and frustrated with the slow, painful recovery.

"I'm 20 years old. What am I doing here?" she said angrily.

It's not just the hospital she wants to leave. When she recovers, she said, she plans to join a brother and sister studying in Milan, Italy.

"I'm leaving the country. I'm very afraid."