JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) - A Palestinian Resistance bombing and a powerful car bomb rocked central Jerusalem's busiest restaurant area on Saturday night, killing at least 12 bystanders and wounding more than 150. (Read photo caption below)
The attack on a pedestrian street, which an Israeli spokesman called the biggest in Jerusalem in years, dealt a fresh blow to a new U.S. effort to end 14 months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
It dimmed hopes of a breakthrough in a less than one-week-old peace mission led by new American envoy Anthony Zinni. Israel said it held Palestinian President Yasser Arafat directly responsible for the attacks.
``As head of the Palestinian Authority, Arafat bears direct responsibility for what happened today in Jerusalem,'' government spokesman Avi Pazner said.
Pazner said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was now holding consultations in the United States, where he is due to meet President Bush on Monday.
In New York, Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said it was too early to tell whether Sharon would cancel the talks and fly home, saying: ``He's in the process of consultations.''
Witnesses said the first blast had shaken the crowded Ben Yehuda pedestrian street, full of restaurants and cafes and the site of several previous attacks, just before midnight (5:00 p.m. EST).
Minutes later, a bomb exploded in a car about 50 yards away as about 20 people tried to move it because it was blocking a road, the witnesses said.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Israeli occupation authorities work near two bodies in the city center of Jerusalem December 1, 2001. A suspected Palestinian Resistance bombing and a car bomb rocked central Jerusalem Saturday, killing at least six people and wounding more than 90 on a crowded street of cafes and restaurants, Israeli occupation authorities said. (Nir Elias/Reuters)