Non-stop Mideast town pauses after bomber kills 19

TEL AVIV - The sun loungers stood empty and few swimmers waded in the surf despite scorching heat. Tel Aviv's trendy Chinky Beach for once lost its taste for hedonism yesterday, after a bomber killed 18 revellers at a nightclub nearby.

Just an hour's drive from tense Jerusalem and the embattled West Bank, the atmosphere of much of the Mediterranean city is usually closer to that of southern California or the Riviera.

Late on Friday (Saturday morning New Zealand time), the bombing reminded Tel Aviv residents that this was still the Middle East.

There was no sign of the young drummers who on the weekend usually converge to perform at the beach, only a minute's walk from the blasted entrance of the Pacha club, where young revellers in weekend finery were torn to pieces.

Instead, the noise was all coming from an angry crowd of protesters on the other side of the coastal road, who hurled rocks at a nearby mosque and scuffled with police.

"You bastards. You cowards. Come out," protesters screamed at the mosque. "Death to Arabs."

Karen, one of the few waitresses at a beach restaurant who had not been sent home for the day, said: "It's dead. All the people who are demonstrating over there would usually be here. Barbarians."

Sean Braiman, aged 25, who lives across the road, was one of the few on the beach yesterday.

He said he had been at a restaurant metres from the club when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives amid a knot of people, mostly youngsters of Russian origin not accustomed to letting the Jewish sabbath stand in the way of a good time.

"There was a huge boom and a mushroom cloud and then a moment of silence and then everyone started to run towards it and everyone in the restaurant panicked. I could hear children screaming from there, it was horrible," said Braiman.

Natan Lieberman was another of the handful venturing back to the coastal strip.

"Usually you can't breathe here," said Lieberman, unafraid of a repetition of the Pacha bombing. "But I feel no one comes back to the scene of the crime. Tel Aviv is a non-stop city and you can't change that."

Karen the waitress was equally philosophical.

"Today the bombing was here, tomorrow somewhere else. When it's this close you say, 'wow it skipped me'."

- REUTERS

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