Explosion Rocks Jerusalem After Suicide Bombing Near Tel Aviv.

By VOA News, MSNBC, Reuters & IsraelNationalNews.com

Witnesses said a massive explosion at a Jerusalem cafe at about 11:20 p.m. (Israel time) has left at least seven people dead hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed seven people east of Tel Aviv. Media reports said at

The manager of Hadassah Eon Kermes Hospital, Dr. Schuler Shapiro, told The Jerusalem Post that 50 people were injured there, primarily young adults in their early 20s. Witnesses told the Post that two security guards spotted the bomber, a young man, before he was able to enter the cafe, which is in a commercial strip of many popular restaurants and small shops. They pushed the bomber outside, where he shouted "Allah amber" (God is great) and detonated his explosives.

Police told Ha'aretz that an intelligence warning that a Hamas terrorist had been dispatched from the West Bank city of Hebron to the capital preceded the bombing. Intelligence authorities said they had been tracking a suspect since early Tuesday morning, but Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy said the bomber was not the man authorities were seeking.

Earlier Tuesday, Israeli police said a Palestinian blew himself up near a bus stop outside an army camp near the Assaf Harofeh Hospital and the Tsrifin army base near the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Letzion. Crowds fled the area screaming.

According to Health Minister Danny Naveh and other officials, the suicide bomber may have intended to target the hospital. Naveh explained that in response to intelligence warnings of a possible attack, security in the hospital was significantly increased. Naveh added the terrorist may have seen the security presence and decided to move to the nearby IDF hitchhiking station.

A witness described seeing the man walk over to the shelter and blow himself up." We know it was a suicide bomber," Uriel Bar-Lev, the local police chief, told reporters at the scene. "We are now investigating how he got here and where he came from."

"After the two attacks in Tel Arabiya [Tel Aviv] and Jerusalem, despite all the Israeli security precautions, we told the Zionists it was payback time," Hamas said in a statement it sent shortly after midnight to the Arabic-language news channel Al-Jazeera. It said Israel could expect more attacks.

Sharon cut short his visit to India because of the attacks Tuesday and was scheduled to return to Israel by Wednesday evening, NBC News reported. Officials told the Jerusalem Post that his response to the bombings would be "painful." "We have one main enemy at this time, and that enemy is Hamas," one of the officials said. "We will conduct this war against Hamas."

Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, said, "The responsibility is shared between the organization that carried out the atrocity and the Palestinian Authority, [which] did nothing to prevent it, and Israel will react accordingly." But Palestinian legislator Saeb Ereket condemned the attack, saying the Palestinians urged the United States and the international community to "de-escalate the violence and implement the road map."

Israeli authorities have been on alert for possible Palestinian attacks since Saturday's attempt by Israel to kill Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Israel, the United States and Ahmed Korei, who has been nominated to be the next Palestinian prime minister, condemned the suicide blast. Korei said Tuesday's violence stresses the need for both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership to find a way to end the killing.

Reuters quoted witnesses as saying the bodies could be seen outside the cafe. Ambulances rushed to the area, a strip with many restaurants and small shops. Israel Army Radio reported that a security guard stopped the bomber from entering the cafe and that he blew himself up just outside.

"I have a store next to the cafe. I arrived just a few moments after the blast," said a witness who identified himself only as Shavi. "I saw things that just can't be described. There are no words."

Israel's army chief said the militant al Qaeda network had tried to recruit a Saudi Arabian pilot to carry out a suicide attack similar to the September 11 attacks on the United States. Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon also said Israel was concerned that Saudi Arabia, which has no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, had stationed F-16 fighter jets at a military base in Tabuk not far from Israel's southern border.

"The deployment of Saudi Arabian F-16s in Tabuk since Operation Iraqi Freedom is a new phenomenon," he told a conference on terrorism in Herzliya on the Mediterranean coast, referring to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. We worry about it because we found out from al Qaeda detainees interrogated by others, not by Israeli intelligence, that al Qaeda sought to recruit a Saudi Arabian pilot to use either an F-16 or a civilian plane for a suicide air attack from Tabuk, like on the twins (towers) in New York on September 11."

Ya'alon gave no further details and did not explicitly say whether the alleged plan was for an attack against Israel. He did not make clear whether there was any link with Tel Aviv office blocks known locally as the twin towers.