On This Day... Mar 27, 2002: Netanya, Israel A Hamas suicide bomber slaughters Jewish patrons marking Passover at a hotel: 30 Killed

The Innocent Victims

HT  RoP : 19 SLAIN IN SEDER HORROR Passover bombing leaves 120 in Israel hurt.

A Palestinian suicide bomber burst into a crowded hotel banquet room last night and turned a Passover Seder into a slaughterhouse - killing 19 Israelis and wounding more than 120. The powerful explosion gutted the Park Hotel in the northern coastal resort town of Netanya and dealt a catastrophic blow to the Bush administration's Mideast peace push. "What we had tonight was a Passover massacre," said Israeli government spokesman Gideon Meir. "There is no limit to Palestinian barbarism.

" Blast survivors said the bomber struck without warning. "Suddenly, it was hell," survivor Nechama Donenhirsch said from her hospital bed. "My daughter, 16 years old, held me and said to me to calm me, 'You are alive. I'm alive. Don't worry, we are alive.

' " The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, calling it a message to the Arab summit in Beirut considering a Saudi plan for peace with Israel. "Our Palestinian people's option is resistance and resistance only," spokesman Usama Hamdan said. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's aides blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for failing to crack down on extremists and were reportedly preparing a massive retaliatory attack.

"The king of lies is facing the moment of truth," senior aide Raanan Gissin said of Arafat, whose Palestinian Authority condemned the attack. Ranks among deadliest It was one of the worst suicide bombings in the past 18 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The deadliest was an attack in June outside a Tel Aviv disco that left 21 dead. The bomb went off about 7:30 p.

m., after Abdel-Basset Odeh sneaked past the hotel security guard with explosives in his bag. He quickly made his way to the mirror-lined ballroom, where about 250 guests wearing their holiday best were mingling. Witnesses said a reception desk clerk spotted Odeh, a member of Hamas' military wing Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades. But before she could call for help, Odeh detonated the bomb.

The explosion tore through the ground floor of the hotel, smashing the mirrors, blowing out walls, overturning tables and chairs, and plunging the banquet hall into darkness. Donenhirsch's son Itai said the family sat just 3 or 4 yards from where the bomber blew himself up.

"I felt shock waves and was pushed under the table and everything blacked out," he said. Bleeding and dazed survivors staggered out into the lobby, some of them dragging moaning victims across a marble floor streaked with blood and littered with body parts and crushed matzo. Donenhirsch, 52, said she saw a little girl lying dead on the ground with her eyes wide open. "We ran . . . over dead people, all in pieces," Donenhirsch said. "There was the smell of smoke and dust in my mouth and a ringing in my ears.

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