09:58 PST JERUSALEM (AP) -- A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded hotel lobby in the coastal resort of Netanya on Wednesday evening, the start of the Passover holiday, police and TV reports said. Witnesses said they saw at least three bodies, and medics reported dozens of casualties.
The explosion took place in the Park Hotel along the boardwalk facing the Mediterranean. At the time, guests were crowding the lobby, waiting to enter the dining hall for the Passover Seder, the ritual meal that ushers in the weeklong Jewish holiday.
Netanya has been a frequent target of Palestinian attackers in the past 18 months of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
On March 9, two Palestinian gunmen tossed grenades and opened fire at a seafront hotel in Netanya, killing a 9-month-old Israeli girl and wounding more than 30 other people. Police killed the attackers. The Al Aqsa Brigades, a group linked with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack.
I still maintain that Bush has privately told Sharon, and Netanyanu, privately, just to hang on a little longer.....yes, the US looks foolish for its apparent double standard in dealing with PLO terrorism against Israel, but folks, really, the dogs of war are about to be unleashed real soon against Iraq....I say again, within 60 days..the entire Saddam regime will be gone....and then, the rest of the Arab states will be suffering huge shortages of toilet-paper, because as soon as we start on Iraq..Israel starts on the PLO....