Suicide bomber kills 10 in café on Sharon's doorstep

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Carnage marks Sharon's first anniversary

A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people and wounded 44 in West Jerusalem last night in an attack only 100 yards from the residence of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister. The attacker struck in the entrance of a fashionable night-spot – the Moment café– exactly a week after an earlier suicidal bombing in Jerusalem. Both came as the city's streets were crowded at the end of the Jewish Sabbath.

The atrocity came a day after the worst 24-hour period of the present conflict claimed the lives of 44 Palestinians and five Israelis, as the Israeli armed forces stepped up their offensive on the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians are calling it Black Friday. Suicide bombers are now attacking Israelis almost daily, providing no evidence that Israel's attacks are fulfilling their alleged objective – to end what Israel calls Palestinian "terror".

The latest bomb was clearly intended to show that the Palestinians can penetrate the political heart of Israel. The president's residence is not far away and Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime Minister, lives down the street.

Hours earlier, two gunmen opened fire on a crowded promenade, killing one man and wounding 34 people in Netanya on the Mediterranean coast – just a few miles from several Arab towns on the West Bank that have been under heavy Israeli assault.

Both attacks were claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a broad-based group linked to the mainstream Fatah movement, which is leading the battle against Israel. However, Hamas, the Islamic nationalists, also claimed the Jerusalem bomb.

Israeli helicopters fired missiles into a Ramallah refugee camp shortly after the suicide bomb. In Gaza, aircraft fired nine missiles at targets around Yasser Arafat's headquarters, wounding at least 24 people. Earlier, Israeli troops and tanks entered the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, and Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.