Hamas defends restaurant bombing

JERUSALEM -- A suicide bomber killed nine people and wounded 60 others at a Tel Aviv restaurant yesterday in the first major attack since Hamas took control of the Palestinian government.

Hamas leaders emphatically supported the Passover week attack as a legitimate act of self-defense. Members of two rival Palestinian factions, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, claimed responsibility for the bombing.

With its response, Hamas gave the first indication of how it would view attacks against Israel after winning legislative elections in January and taking control of the Palestinian Authority last month.

''We think that this operation . . . is a direct result of the policy of the occupation and the brutal aggression and siege committed against our people," Khaled Abu Helal, a spokesman for the Hamas-led Interior Ministry, told the Associated Press yesterday.

The Hamas response set the stage for confrontation with Israel and further isolation by Western countries.

''The Israeli side must feel what the Palestinian feels, and the Palestinian defends himself as much as he can," exiled Hamas leader Moussa abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera.

The attack punctuated a period of escalating violence since Hamas won Palestinian elections in January, and Israeli officials said they would hold Hamas responsible regardless of which faction carried out the bombing.

''We will know how to respond in the way and manner required, and we will continue to act with all means at our disposal to thwart further such incidents," Israeli Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert told Knesset members.

Olmert and several aides said that Hamas's repeated calls for the destruction of Israel spawned attacks such as yesterday's bombing.

Hamas has observed a cease-fire with Israel since February 2005. Islamic Jihad, a separate Islamic extremist group with close ties to Iran, has claimed responsibility for eight of the nine suicide attacks staged against Israel in the past 14 months.

The attacker yesterday detonated his bomb outside a crowded shwarma restaurant on a busy pedestrian arcade in downtown Tel Aviv, near the central bus station. A suicide bomber targeted the same location in January, wounding 30.

According to police, yesterday's blast killed nine people in addition to the bomber and wounded 60 more. It was the deadliest such attack in Israel since August 2004, and the second major Passover bombing in four years.

''I was waiting for the food to be prepared, when all of a sudden I heard a big bang," Avi Itzmago said from his hospital bed. ''Everything was destroyed."

He had shrapnel injuries in his head and legs, but he said the attack would not deter him from frequenting his favorite lunch spot.

Many Israelis are on vacation for the weeklong Passover holiday. Avishai Betashvili was shopping with his wife on the arcade when the bomb went off.

''We were walking and I heard a sudden blast," Betashvili said. ''We were blown into the air." He said it was miraculous that he and his wife survived.

Hamas, he said, will only bring more violence to Israel. ''Talking to them is a waste of time," he said. ''We have no security."

The White House called the attack ''a despicable act of terror for which there is no excuse or justification." White House press secretary Scott McClellan also warned Hamas officials in the new government against supporting such attacks, saying: ''Defense or sponsorship of terrorist acts by officials of the Palestinian Cabinet will have the gravest effects on relations between the Palestinian Authority and all states seeking peace in the Middle East."

The bombing came as Israeli political parties negotiated on a coalition government, likely to be led by Olmert's centrist Kadima Party. Olmert has ordered a review of Israel's security policy following Hamas's formal assumption of power.

Israel has severed all ties with the Palestinian Authority until Hamas renounces violence, agrees to abide by past treaties, and recognizes Israel.

In the weeks since its Cabinet was sworn in, Hamas has pledged to resist Israel but also has demanded international recognition as a popularly elected government.

Uzi Arad, a former director of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, who is now a political scientist at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, said Hamas apparently wanted a steady stream of terror attacks against Israel while avoiding a serious military response.

''At the moment, Hamas has an overriding interest in establishing some kind of truce. They want to establish themselves politically, and they want to gain greater international legitimacy," Arad said.

But Hamas is caught in a bind, Arad said, because as a militant organization it wants to reserve the right to use terror attacks as a tactic.

''By no means are they on the road to renounce terrorism as a practice," Arad said. ''They refer to terrorist activities as 'legitimate struggle' and want to maintain it as an option."

In the last month, Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip have increased. Israel has targeted rocket-launching sites with artillery, but so far the Israeli military has opted not to reenter Gaza, which Israel evacuated last fall.

Since their election campaign, Hamas leaders have said they would not try to stop armed resistance against Israel by other Palestinian militant groups even if Hamas was pursuing a temporary truce with Israel.

Abu Helal, a member of the defeated Fatah Party who joined the Hamas government last month, said in a recent interview in Gaza City that the Hamas-led interior ministry has abandoned the Palestinian Authority's longtime policy of trying to round up militants who attack Israel.

Israel frequently criticized the Palestinian Authority's promise to stop terror attacks as empty lip service. But Hamas, Abu Helal said, will not even pretend to condemn violence.

Globe correspondent Noam Sharon reported from Tel Aviv and Anne Barnard of the Globe staff from Gaza City.