TEL AVIV, Israel — A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of young Israelis waiting to enter a Tel Aviv disco, killing 18 people and turning a festive beachfront promenade into a bloody nightmare of carnage and confusion.
It was by far the worst terrorist attack against Israel since fighting with the Palestinians erupted in September, and it raised the possibility of a strong Israeli retaliation against Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon planned an emergency Cabinet meeting Saturday morning and his spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said there would be decisions that would “restore security, but also leave open the door to peace.”
“This pointless murder of young people who went out to have a good time shows … who is looking for peace in the Middle East and who is trying to achieve through violence and terror what they couldn’t get in negotiations,” Gissin said.
The explosion, heard for miles around the city, occurred around 11 p.m. Friday in front of the Pacha nightclub in a former aquarium building that faces a promenade lined with restaurants, bars, hotels and office towers.
“I was about to enter, suddenly I looked in the direction of the blast, I saw people thrown backward,” said Dudi Nachum, 21. “I saw parts of a brain, things I have never seen before. It was terrible.”
Another witness said he saw “people without hands, people running without legs and then falling down.”
Scores of police cars and ambulances raced through the jammed streets of the Mediterranean city to reach the scene, where police struggled to push crowds away as helicopters hovered overhead and smoke wafted in the air.
Bodies covered by white and black tarps lay on the ground in front of the entrance to the nightclub. One of the victims appeared to be a girl in her early teens, wearing a red top and platform shoes.
Police Superintendent Uri Bar Lev put the death toll at 18, and reports said more than 80 people were injured. The explosive was said to have contained pieces of metal that caused particularly severe injuries when they flew out in all directions.
About a dozen cars parked in front of the club were heavily damaged by the blast, their windows shattered and pieces of flesh and blood spattered on them.
Police said they made several arrests.
Since fighting erupted last September, 484 people have been killed on the Palestinian side — including Friday’s attacker — and 104 on the Israeli side.
Israel Radio said the militant group Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility, but this could not be confirmed. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a spokesman for the Hamas group, did not claim responsibility for the blast but said it was “the right of the Palestinian people to terrorize the enemies.”
Israeli security has been on high alert for such attacks, but has found it impossible to keep attackers from crossing into Israel through the hundreds of miles of borders with the West Bank.
Four car bombs over the past week claimed no lives, and Israel stuck to its two-week-old “unilateral cease-fire” — a proclaimed policy of restraint which the Palestinians have dismissed as a publicity stunt.
Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, who arrived on the scene, blamed Arafat for the attacks and said, “We have to understand that we have a war before us, and give an answer to this thing.”
Palestinian Parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said the Palestinian Authority was against the killing of civilians on both sides of the conflict.
But, he said, “there is no way to put an end to this cycle of violence as long as the Israeli government is not responding to the international community’s calls or invitation to put an end to the aggression which it is practicing against the Palestinian people.”
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered the Palestinians a state in almost all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and a share of Jerusalem. But he did not meet the Palestinians’ demands for a “right of return” to Israel for millions of refugees, and fighting erupted last fall as talks continued on and-off.
In a February election, Barak was crushed by Sharon, who considered his predecessor’s offers far too generous and has taken them off the table.
In Washington, President Bush demanded that Arafat condemn the bombing and call for an immediate cease-fire. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was horrified by the bombing.
The blast was the deadliest since July 30, 1997, when two bombers killed themselves and 15 others in a Jerusalem market. Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility for that blast.
Friday’s carnage came at the end of a week during which the United States restarted efforts to bring the two sides together again.
Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs held two rounds of talks and U.S. diplomats met with Israeli officials to discuss implementation of a report by an international commission headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell. The report recommended a step-by-step process of an end to violence, confidence-building measures and a return to negotiations.
