Murders Israel

A Palestinian militant armed with a gun and grenades burst into a crowded banquet hall in northern Israel late Thursday and opened fire on the dancing guests at a young girl's bat mitzvah. At least six people were shot to death and 30 others were wounded before police and enraged guests overpowered and killed the assailant. The attack in the city of Hadera came as a relative lull in violence evaporated, along with hopes for a breakthrough after more than 15 months of bloodletting.

The camera follows the beaming 12-year-old in the glittering gown as she dances with friends to fast-paced music. It stays on her as she turns, puzzled, when the crack of gunfire rings out. For a moment, the band plays on, the sound of shots mingling with the music. Then come screams as the elegantly dressed revelers realize that they are under attack. They dive for cover. The footage stops.

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded ultra-Orthodox neighborhood here as the Jewish Sabbath ended Saturday night, killing nine Israelis, including five children. Hours later, Palestinian gunmen early today ambushed an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank, shooting dead at least seven soldiers and Jewish settlers. The toll of 16 dead in barely 12 hours shocked a nation already traumatized by nearly a year and a half of bloodshed, warfare and revenge that only worsens.

A lone Palestinian gunman slipped inside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip late Thursday night, killing five Israeli students and wounding 23 people on a day of violence that seemed to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the brink of all-out war. Since Thursday morning, more than 30 Palestinians have died in the fighting.

Palestinian gunmen disguised as Israeli soldiers cut through a fence surrounding this isolated Jewish settlement Saturday and raced from house to house, shooting residents at breakfast, on the street and in their beds, the Israeli army said. Four people, including a 5-year-old girl, were killed, and seven others wounded in the brazen daylight rampage, the deadliest such attack since Israel launched a sweeping offensive against Palestinian militants in the West Bank a month ago.

Israeli riot police who killed nine Israeli Arabs in October violated regulations by firing at distant protesters who posed no deadly threat and by shooting one victim in the back of the neck at close range, three human rights groups reported Sunday. A joint inquiry by Jewish and Arab researchers faulted police for taunting the protesters, shunning nonlethal riot control methods, rebuffing efforts by Arab elders to defuse conflicts and detaining ambulances that were rushing to aid the wounded.

Israeli army search parties found the body of a 34-year-old Israeli this morning who had disappeared after reporting for work in the greenhouses of a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Roni Tzalah was found in an onion field near the greenhouse where he was last seen, Israel Radio reported. Israeli army and Palestinian security forces, in a rare act of cooperation, both searched for Tzalah throughout the night.

Sixteen-year-old Ofir Rahum's Web site became a virtual memorial Friday. Even as his bullet-riddled body was being buried in a rain-drenched cemetery on Israel's coast, computer enthusiasts from all over the world were posting messages of grief and anger. "I wish you would have remained anonymous and a stranger to us all," wrote one.

Israel on Tuesday abruptly suspended crucial peace talks, which had begun to show hints of progress, after the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli restaurateurs, apparently by masked Palestinian gunmen. The bodies of the two Tel Aviv men were discovered Tuesday evening near the West Bank town of Tulkarm, the Israeli army said. Israeli television reported that the pair, accompanied by an Israeli Arab, had gone to Tulkarm to shop and had stopped to eat in a restaurant.

Authorities tightened Israel's blockade of Palestinian territories Wednesday and vowed tough punishment after a Palestinian driver mowed through a crowd of Israeli soldiers and commuters at a bus stop, killing eight people and injuring more than 20.