Suicide Bombs Rip Jerusalem Street; 7 Dead, 190 Wounded

In attacks timed just seconds apart, three suicide bombers blew themselves up Thursday in an outdoor mall crowded with shoppers and tourists, killing four other people, wounding about 190 and striking yet another blow at the tottering Middle East peace process.

In an apparently unrelated incident, but one that spelled a further setback to the prospects for regional peace, at least nine Israeli soldiers were killed today in a botched commando raid deep inside southern Lebanon, an Israeli security source said. The deaths, if confirmed, represent one of Israel’s highest tolls in a single confrontation in Lebanon in many months.

The Israeli army said it could not immediately confirm reports of Israeli casualties in the raid about 30 miles north of the border, well outside the 9-mile-wide strip Israel occupies inside southern Lebanon. But a security source said at least nine Israelis were believed to have died in the battle that broke out between the Israelis and Lebanese guerrillas who discovered the operation in progress. Lebanese sources said at least 12 Israelis and one civilian were killed.

The target of the raid was not immediately clear.

In Jerusalem, the synchronized explosions Thursday--the second such attack in five weeks--transformed the city’s Ben Yehuda Street from a casual, end-of-summer scene of bustling cafes and souvenir shops to one of carnage and fear. Sobbing teenagers clung to one another in the popular pedestrian mall, and frantic parents searched desperately for missing children.

“We were having a drink and were about to say cheers,” said Abie Mendelsohn, 18, of Los Angeles, who was slightly injured. “The next thing I knew I was on the floor. . . . I saw people screaming. I saw blood everywhere.”

In calls to Western news agencies here, the militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, as it had following twin suicide bombings in Jerusalem’s nearby central produce market July 30 that left 17 dead and scores injured.

Thursday’s attack came just as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is scheduled to begin a high-profile mission here next week aimed at breathing life into the failing, 4-year-old Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

President Clinton interrupted a holiday on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts to condemn the latest attack but said it will not disrupt Albright’s visit, her first to the troubled region.

Speaking to reporters in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat quickly condemned the attacks and said he believed that the suicide bombers came from outside both Israel and the Palestinian-ruled territories. Later, Palestinian security officials arrested a handful of people, including two Hamas political leaders, in the West Bank and closed a Hamas newspaper in the Gaza Strip, according to Associated Press.

But the actions were expected to fall far short of the sweeping crackdown that Israel has demanded against militant organizations.

Israel sealed its borders almost immediately after the explosions, ordering Palestinian workers inside Israel to return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and preventing all from entering Israel. Similar restrictions that followed the July 30 bombings had just been eased, although most Palestinians were still prohibited from crossing into Israel.

Israel also announced that it had refused to attend a regular security coordination meeting with Palestinian and U.S. officials.

Police said Thursday’s bombs, riddled with nails to increase injuries, each contained about 5 pounds of explosives, relatively small by the painfully familiar standards of Jerusalem attacks. Most of those wounded in the blasts suffered light to moderate injuries, hospital officials said.

The blasts were set off by three men, one of whom may have been disguised as an elderly man and another as a woman, Israel Radio reported. Just after 3 p.m., the three stood amid the crowds of shoppers along the tree-lined walkway and detonated their explosives-laden bags in quick succession.

The bombings left a 100-yard stretch of the trendy street a mass of twisted metal, shattered glass and toppled sun umbrellas.

Police said later that they had received warnings about attacks in central Jerusalem and had increased their presence along the Ben Yehuda mall and other public gathering points.

Three hours after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Arafat, again accusing the Palestinian leader of failing to crack down on terrorist groups opposed to the peace process.

“We are not prepared to go on like this,” a visibly angry Netanyahu said after visiting some of the bombing victims in a Jerusalem hospital. “We’ll consider all the steps we should take to secure the safety of the citizens of Israel, but let it be clear that from this moment onwards, our path will be a different path.”

Netanyahu also castigated Arafat for his recent, widely publicized embrace of a Hamas political leader, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, saying the peace process cannot exist side by side with such actions.

After the July bombings, the Israeli government threatened to reenter areas turned over to the Palestinians in the peace deals if Arafat did not take tougher action against militant groups. So far, Israel has not acted on that threat.

Late Thursday, the government also announced that it was reinstituting internal blockades that keep Palestinians from moving between their towns and villages in the West Bank. A monthlong closure of Bethlehem was lifted only last week.

Arafat and other Palestinian officials blamed tough Israeli actions for creating an atmosphere that contributes to violence.

“This [attack] is tragic, but we must put it in perspective,” said Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi, the minister for higher education in Arafat’s Cabinet. “Keeping the peace process and the Palestinian people as hostages, through the closure, land confiscations and not implementing the peace agreements, [does] lead to violence.”

According to Associated Press, Clinton phoned both Arafat and Netanyahu to express concern about the attack. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the president “made very clear” to Arafat his concerns about security.

Many of Thursday’s wounded were taken to Shaarei Tzedek hospital, where Mendelsohn spoke to reporters. His head bandaged and face marked by cuts and scratches, the Jewish seminary student said he heard “three loud bangs” before being thrown 15 feet.

Five minutes before the first explosion, Greg Salzman, 25, a chiropractor originally from New Brunswick, N.J., had moved from one side of a vegetarian restaurant to the other to escape the glare of the sun. The move, which took him farther from the bombers, probably spared him serious injuries, he said.

Longtime Los Angeles resident David Keinan, who heads the Israel Discount Bank branch in Beverly Hills, said he and his wife, Tammy, and 11-year-old son Omer had decided to drop by the bank’s branch on Ben Yehuda during their annual Israeli vacation. Minutes later, a shaken Keinan was driving his family members, both slightly injured, to the hospital.

Palestinians have complained about Israel’s sanctions, terming such measures “collective punishment” against all Palestinians, not just those who attack Israel. They had hoped to gain Albright’s support in pressuring Israel to lift the closure further and to free millions of dollars in tax revenues frozen by Israel after the July bombings.

Miriam Ash, Saida Hamad and Efrat Shvily of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.