The bombing occurred when the terrorist entered the Wall Street Café on Ben Gurion Street in the center of Kiryat Motzkin, a small town north of Haifa. The bomber approached a waitress inside the café, lifted his shirt and asked her, "Do you know what this is?" The waitress, Ella Bongrad, 17, saw the explosive device taped to the man's chest, and immediately screamed, "Terrorist!" warning the patrons inside to leave the restaurant.

"Don't make me a hero," Bongrad said afterwards. "I

"I understood something was strange about him." - waitress Ella Bongrad, who confronted the suicide bomber.

understood something was strange about him. He spoke to me in Arabic and showed me his chest. I saw a fuse and a lighter in his hand." She then ran into the café's kitchen to warn restaurant owner Aharon Roseman that there was a terrorist outside.

Roseman saw the terrorist light the fuse. "I grabbed a chair and threw it at him, and ran behind a wall, and that's what saved me,'' he told Israel Radio.

The terrorist shouted, "Allah Akhbar" and detonated the explosives. The bomb destroyed the café, shattering glass and debris into the street. "Everything flew into the air," Linda Cohen, a French tourist told ynet. "There was a mass confusion of injured people on the floor, among them young children… Everyone began crying…"

Twenty-one people were injured in the blast, one of them moderately and the rest with light wounds. Roseman was treated by his wife, Ella, a nurse who works at Haifa's Rambam hospital. "When I heard the news about the blast and the restaurant where it took place, I knew my husband was one of those injured," Ella told Israel Radio.

Last night Israeli police continued to question an Israeli taxi driver, identified only as Rami, who reportedly had driven the bomber from Haifa to Kiryat Motzkin. The taxi driver picked up his fare in Haifa. After originally asking to be driven to a Haifa destination, the man asked the driver to take him to Kiryat Motzkin.

"He didn't speak Hebrew at all," Rami told Israel Radio. "I speak Arabic from home, so I could communicate with him. When we arrived in Kiryat Motzkin, I asked him what street he wanted. He said, 'Keep driving. I know where I have to get off.'"

The terrorist apparently spoke on a cellular phone three times during the journey, saying repeatedly, "I can't find the place." Rami's suspicions were raised and he reportedly searched for a police car as he drove. After the terrorist paid the fare and left the taxi, Rami approached a nearby policeman and told him of his suspicions. A moment later, the bomb exploded inside the Wall Street café.

Security forces on high alert but no IDF response yet
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The bomber was identified as Muhammed Mahmoud Bakker Nasser, 28, of Kabatiya near Jenin. Nasser had worked for the Palestinian security forces until he left six weeks ago. Since then, "he said often that he wanted to become a martyr,'' said Nasser's father, Mahmoud.

Israeli security forces remain on high alert today with general warnings of additional bombing attacks. Many restaurants have begun stationing guards at their entrances in order to discourage suicide bombers, who have reportedly been told to avoid places where they could be detected.

Israel's security cabinet met during the night to discuss possible military responses to the Kiryat Motzkin bombing. Unlike other recent attacks, including the suicide bombing at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem on Thursday, the IDF did not launch an immediate response. Even so, a senior military source told ynet that Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz has recommended launching a large, wide-ranging military action. "The fact that the injuries [in Kiryat Motzkin] were only light and moderate just shows we have good luck, a great miracle," the source told ynet. "But the attack was not substantially different from other attacks," he added.

Media commentators speculated that the Islamic Jihad had hurried to launch a suicide bombing, as the organization had "lost face" in the Palestinian public after prematurely claiming credit for the Sbarro restaurant bombing. Some noted that the attack did not achieve the desired results because of sloppy planning and inferior explosives, both possibly a result of Israeli targeted strikes at Islamic Jihad terrorist leaders.

Israel's restrained response to the Kiryat Motzkin attack was a direct application of the "results test," according to commentator Amos Harel writing in Ha'aretz. "Just as it judges the Palestinian Authority's anti-terror activities according to results rather than effort, it also modulates its responses according to results rather than the terrorists' intentions. For 15 people with minor injuries, Israel will not go to war," Harel writes.

© 2001 Koret Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.