Suicide bomber kills at least 18 outside Tel Aviv disco.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

TEL AVIV, Israel _ A suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of a crowd waiting to enter a discotheque in Tel Aviv late Friday, killing himself and at least 18 other people and wounding at least 85 more, many of them seriously.

"This is one of the worst I've ever seen in 15 years because of the time, the place and the number of casualties," Tel Aviv Police Chief Yossi Sedbon told Knight Ridder at the scene Friday night. "We do not expect that someone would come and explode himself in front of a nightclub."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called an emergency meeting of his inner security Cabinet for 8:30 Saturday morning, a rare session on the Jewish Sabbath. Speculation was rife that his government would end a unilateral cease-fire it imposed 10 days ago.

After the attack, bodies lay in pools of blood, draped with green and white plastic body bags as authorities rushed to remove the dead and treat the injured. Scores of the wounded, many soaked in blood, lay sprawled along the streets of the beachfront area, known for its lively cafes and nightclubs. The windows of several cars were blown out by the blast, and glass and debris littered the sidewalks.

The area is crowded with partying teen-agers on the weekend. The bomber, who was not identified, managed to sneak into a long line of young people trying to get into the Pascha disco at about 11:30 p.m., authorities said.

"I felt a big bang and I fell to the ground. I saw bodies lying in the blood," said 16-year-old Natalie Zuber, her mascara smudged by tears as she lay in the emergency room at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital. An immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, Zuber said the club was crowded with other Russian-speaking teens. Although security guards were inspecting bags at the door, the bomber had sidled up to the crowd waiting to get inside.

The hospital's information station was crowded with weeping parents trying to find teen-agers who had been to the disco.