Murder on the campus

They were searching for body parts when we reached the students' cafeteria at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, painstakingly sifting the broken pieces of tables and ceiling tiles that littered the floor. Plates with half-eaten meals still on them lay amid the broken glass around our feet. There were about 200 students crowded in for lunch when a bomb went off yesterday, witnesses said. They spent the rest of the day sponging the students' blood off the floor.

At least seven people died ­ including, it was believed last night, three or more Americans ­ and more than 70 were injured in what was a devastating attack on the heart of civil society in Israel. These were not Jewish settlers living in the occupied territories, or soldiers on the front line. They were young, unarmed civilians. The bodies of six of them lay in a row, in black plastic bags.

Amid the wreckage was half a Hebrew-English dictionary, torn apart by the blast. Beside it, a photocopied Hebrew text where someone had jotted a few notes in English handwriting. Many of those in the café at the Frank Sinatra International Students' Centre were foreigners on summer courses. Many of the others in the café were Palestinians since this is one of the few places left where Israelis and Palestinians mix.

Alastair Goldrein, a 19-year-old visiting student from Liverpool, helped to move the wounded. "I carried people out. They won't walk again," he said, a young shaven-headed man wearing his kippah, a Jewish skullcap, clearly in shock, and speaking very fast. "I carried one girl out. Her arm was already coming off. It was just hanging. I saw bodies without feet. I saw bodies without all sorts of things."

This was not a suicide bombing, the Israeli police thought. They said it was a bomb planted in a bag on a table at the centre of the café.

The militant Islamist Hamas organisation claimed responsibility, said al-Jazeera television, and the attack was revenge for Israel's air strike on Gaza, which killed its military leader and nine Palestinian children. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Hamas' spiritual leader, said: "When Israel bombs a civilian building full of women and children, and kills 15 people, this is the response they should expect."

It was a response that quickly eroded the international sympathy for the Palestinians prompted by the Gaza air strike. "Why is somebody targeting students sitting down to their lunch?" Mr Goldrein said. "We're talking about 19 to 25-year-olds, Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, left-wingers, right-wingers.

"The restaurant was full of Arabs. I eat with Arabs every day. I carried out one girl who was obviously of Arab extraction. She was badly wounded. God grant that she lives. I really mean that; God grant it."

A small group of right-wing Israelis had turned up at the scene, bearing a huge banner saying, "Throw the Arab enemy out". One of them was shouting angrily at the top of his voice. His companion, 17-year-old Zev Blumberg, said the group wanted to expel all the Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories.

But the Hebrew University is not like that. Many young Palestinians ­ those who live in East Jerusalem or have Israeli citizenship ­ attend the university.

Mr Goldrein said: "I have Arabs living in my accommodation. The university is pretty left-wing. I'm moving towards the right, but a lot of the people here say Israel has to give the territories back to the Palestinians. Nobody in that café was an obstacle to a Palestinian state."

Because Israel lays claim to all of Jerusalem as its own, there is no fence or roadblocks, no soldiers separating Arab East Jerusalem from the Jewish West. The Hebrew University lies on Mount Scopus, a Jewish island in the Arab east surrounded by Palestinian districts.

There had clearly been a breach of security. Students told us their bags were searched by two armed guards at the entrance to the university, but that there was no guard at the café. Others pointed out that the perimeter fence was easy to cross undetected.

Nobody believes yesterday's bombing is the end of a new wave of violence by Palestinian militant groups in reaction to the Gaza air strike. A Hamas statement reportedly read: "It's a part of a series of responses that will take a long time and teachall Israelis."

Israel ordered the relative of an alleged Palestinian militant to be deported to the Gaza Strip yesterday. It is the first time Israel has gone ahead with a deportation, which human rights groups have warned is a breach of the Geneva conventions.