ARABS-ISRAEL - March 31 - Haifa Bomb Kills 15.

Shadi Tobasi, a 22-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber from Jenin, detonates explosives inside the Matza restaurant in Haifa, killing himself and 14 Israelis. The restaurant is Jewish-owned but managed by Israeli Arabs. Haifa Mayor Amran Mitzna said: "The city of Haifa is well known as a city where people live together, co-exist, living side by side. And, as you can see today, they suffer together". Because of the Passover holiday, the restaurant was crowded, with about 40 people inside. The blast caused the roof to collapse into shreds of metal and wire, and many of the victims suffered from burns. Hamas took responsibility for the blast, saying the attack was a response to the Israeli incursion into Ramallah. Later in the day, another suicide bomber set off explosives at a medical facility at the settlement of Efrat in the West Bank, wounding 4 Israelis. After the two attacks, and after a meeting of his security cabinet, PM Sharon said in his brief televised address: "Citizens of Israel: the state of Israel is at war, a war against terror. We must fight this terrorism, in an uncompromising war to uproot these savages, to dismantle their infrastructure, because there is no compromise with terrorists". Sharon said Israel had accepted the outlines of US-brokered ceasefire proposals and had dropped its earlier insistence on seven days of complete quiet before it would agree to return to talks with the Palestinians. But, sounding angry, he said: "The only thing we got in return for our efforts is terrorism, terrorism and more terrorism. This terrorism is being directed, promoted and initiated by one person, Yasser Arafat... the head of a coalition of terrorism. He operates an infrastructure of terrorism. Yasser Arafat is an enemy of Israel and an enemy of the free world". (The Army has confined Arafat and some of his aides and security guards since March 29 to just two rooms of his compound in Ramallah, with the electricity cut and the batteries of his cellular phone nearly exhausted). But Arafat remained defiant, vowing he would never allow himself to be captured, killed or exiled. "For me, it is not the first time", Arafat said in a brief TV interview with reporters who managed to enter his besieged compound with about 40 pro-Palestinian peace activists from Europe and the US. After the entry of the peace activists, Israel ordered all foreigners out of Ramallah. Arafat again appealed for foreign assistance to help him out of this current crisis, asking "international forces to stop the aggression and military escalation". Meanwhile, Palestinian sources reported that dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles were massing around Bethlehem, and Israeli soldiers at the Northern edge of the city, at Rachel's Tomb, were using loudspeakers to warn people to stay inside their homes. Israeli forces also were gathering for an operation west of Bethlehem, in Beit Jala and in El Khadr. In another development, Anthony Shadid, a Washington-based reporter for The Boston Globe, was wounded in Ramallah, and Israel warned that foreign journalists were at risk and should not be in the city. Israeli troops control the empty streets in the area where Shadid was shot, though it was not clear who shot him.