Jerusalem - The fate of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hung in the balance on Sunday as Israel hit back after a suicide bomber killed 19 people in a Haifa restaurant.
A senior Israeli official told AFP, "When the time comes he will be expelled. The clock is already ticking."
Israeli forces blew up the homes of militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including that of 29-year-old suicide bomber Hanadi Tayssir Jaradat, who carried out Saturday's attack on behalf of Islamic Jihad.
Troops also cut the main north-south highway through the Gaza Strip with roadblocks, while in Israel itself police were on high alert for further attacks over Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar beginning at sunset Sunday.
In Ramallah foreign and Israeli peace activists began gathering to form a "human shield" around Arafat's West Bank headquarters amid fears that Israel would put into effect its September 11 decision to "remove" the Palestinian leader.
Arafat and the Palestinian leadership "vigorously condemned" Saturday's suicide attack, in a statement published by the official Wafa news agency.
The veteran Palestinian leader also called for a new ceasefire with Israel to be overseen by the sponsors of the "roadmap" for peace plan.
Palestinian prime minister-designate Ahmed Qorei, who is in the process of forming a new government, urged all Palestinian groups to stop targeting civilians.
He also called on the Israeli government to halt its confiscation of Palestinian land, in a reference to the security barrier Israel is building that pushes deep into the West Bank in places.
Israel struck back with helicopter attacks in the Gaza Strip overnight after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 19 people, including five children, in the northern Israeli town of Haifa.
The radical Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the suicide attack by a lawyer at a restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa on Saturday, the eve of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday.
Jaradat, a lawyer whose brother and cousin had been killed by the Israeli army in June, according to Islamic Jihad, walked into Haifa's Maxim restaurant and detonated her explosives.
The restaurant, a joint Jewish and Israeli-Arab operation in the northern port city where the two groups live in harmony, was filled with people enjoying a late lunch on the Sabbath.
The blast caused carnage, wiping out three generations of two families in particular.
Hours later Israeli helicopter gunships launched twin attacks in the Gaza Strip, targeting the homes of Islamic activists, Palestinian security sources said.
In Gaza City missiles hit the home of a member of the radical Palestinian group Hamas, which was hit but was empty at the time, the sources said. Several people were slightly injured by flying glass.
Soon afterwards Israeli helicopters struck again at the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Witnesses said the target was the house of an Islamic Jihad activist, which was also empty at the time.
In the West Bank city of Jenin Israeli troops in a column of 30 tanks and other armoured vehicles dynamited Jaradat's home, a bungalow where eight people lived.
There was no word of any casualties in the operation, a habitual move for Israel after suicide and other attacks on the grounds that it deters militants.
Israeli troops also conducted a house-to-house sweep of the district looking for wanted activists.
Saturday's suicide blast was the first since twin attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on September 9, following the breakdown of a truce declared by militant groups amid efforts to implement an international peace plan known as the roadmap.
The latest attack was internationally condemned, with American President George Bush blaming Palestinian terrorism for the lack of progress toward a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East.
"This murderous action, aimed at families gathered to enjoy a Sabbath lunch," was a "despicable attack" that "underscores once again the responsibility of Palestinian authorities to fight terror, which remains the foremost obstacle to achieving the vision of two states living side by side in peace and security," he said.
China also "strongly" condemned the attack, saying it was "seriously" concerned and worried over the deteriorating situation in the Middle East.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Kong Quan urged Israel and the Palestinians to return to the "correct path of resolving disputes through negotiations as soon as possible."
But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned against any move to expel Arafat.
"The premeditated escalation against the elected Palestinian president will not serve the cause of peace in any way," he said in a televised speech on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the 1973 war against Israel. - Sapa-AFP