At least 19 people, were killed and dozens injured Saturday in a bomb attack by a Palestinian woman at a restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa on the Jewish holiday. "We confirm that 19 people were killed," national police spokesman Gil Kleiman told AFP, adding that the toll did not include the bomber. "Five of the victims are known to have been children." Around 50 people had also been injured in the blast, he added. The Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack which it said was carried out by a 29-year-old female lawyer, Hanadi Tayssir Jaradat, whose brother and cousin had been killed by the Israeli army in June. The blast went off at around 2:20 pm in the harbour city some 130 kilometers north of Jerusalem which has a large Arab minority. Arafat himself and the Palestinian leadership "vigorously condemned" the 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. Peled said that "whatever Arafat says is totally irrelevant and not taken seriously." Palestinian prime minister-designate Ahmed Qorei also issued a condemnation and urged all Palestinian groups to stop targeting civilians. But he also called on the Israeli government to halt its confiscation of Palestinian land. Israel announced on Wednesday that it would push ahead with the next stage of a separation barrier that at times cuts deep into Palestinian land in the West Bank. On Thursday, it unveiled plans for hundreds more homes in West Bank Jewish settlements. Meanwhile, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed faction linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, was killed Saturday during an Israeli operation in the northern West Bank in which a nine-year-old boy was also shot dead. The adult victim was named as Sirhan Sirhan, whom the Israelis said was behind an attack on a kibbutz in northern Israel 11 months ago which left five people dead. The nine-year-old boy was shot in the chest when Israeli forces opened fire on a group of Brigades members in the Tulkarem camp, Palestinian sources said. **PHOTO CAPTION*** The body of one of 19 people killed in a bomb attack on a restaurant in Haifa is carried by Israeli paramedics. (AFP/Yoav Lemmern)