Suicide bomber kills 19, injures 55

HAIFA, Israel -- The bustling seaside Maxim restaurant is a mirror of one of Israel's few mixed Arab-Jewish cities. Jewish pro soccer players hang out here. Many of the diners are Arabs. For four decades the business has been owned by two families -- one Arab, one Jewish.\nThis port city, however, has also been a repeated target for Palestinian suicide bombers, perhaps because the attackers are better able to blend in. And Saturday, Maxim became the latest site to be hit.\nIn the afternoon, a Palestinian woman got past a guard at the door -- by shooting him, according to some reports -- and detonated a load of explosives. The blast thundered along the beach and up along the foothills of the seaside Carmel mountains.\nThe bomber, 27-year-old Hanadi Jaradat, was sent by the Islamic Jihad group, which has dispatched several other women to bomb Israeli targets. Her brother and a cousin, a member of Islamic Jihad, were killed in an Israeli army raid in June. Jaradat, a graduate from law school, was serving an apprenticeship in a law office.\nJaradat killed 19 bystanders Saturday, including four Arabs and four children.\nThe blast blew out windows and blackened parts of the restaurant. Light fixtures and electric wires dangled, ripped from the shredded ceiling. Beneath a fog of smoke, blood and bits of broken plates dotted the floor.