Smash hit

Raanan Gissin, an Israeli government spokesman, said that Hamas would be held to account: “This Palestinian Authority, which has clearly defined itself as a terrorist entity, has tried to instigate terrorist support more than the previous one did, and we will act accordingly.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian President, whose Fatah party was routed by Hamas in the elections in January, also condemned the bombing as a “terrorist attack”.

Witnesses said that the bomber’s bag was being searched by a security guard outside a shopping centre when he blew himself up.

()“I saw a young man starting to open his bag,” Moussa al- Zidat, a shopper, said. “The guard begins opening the bag, and then I heard a boom.”

The blast shattered the windshields of cars, pornography cinemas and shops near by. Police quickly sealed off the city centre.

Israel Yaakov said that he saw a woman killed near her family. “The father was traumatised, he went into shock. He ran to the children to gather them up and the children were screaming, ‘Mom! Mom!’ and she wasn’t answering, she was dead already . . . It’s a shocking scene,” he said.

Medical workers feared that dozens of illegal immigrants were also wounded but were too afraid to attend hospital. Immigration police declared a 24-hour amnesty, assuring victims that they would not be rounded up and deported.

Police said that a car that fled the scene containing three Palestinian suspects, was seized on the main road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israeli security was tight because of previous holiday attacks.

The bomber’s mother, Samya, said later that she had had no knowledge of her son’s intentions. “I thought that he had gone to work in Jenin before I was told on the phone that he had carried out this attack in Tel Aviv,” she said.

The EU condemned the attack and strongly urged the Palestinian Government to renounce violence. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, also condemned the attack and urged the Palestinian Authority to take a clear public stand against acts of terrorism.

RECENT ATTACKS

2005 February 25 Suicide bomber kills five and injures 50 outside Stage nightclub in Tel Aviv. Claimed by Islamic Jihad

July 12 Palestinian blows himself up at shopping mall in Netanya, killing five and wounding 30. Islamic Jihad

October 26 Palestinian blows himself up in the main market at Hadera. Six die

December 5 Suicide bomber at the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya kills five. Islamic Jihad’s Jerusalem Brigades

December 29 Israeli soldier and two Palestinians killed in suicide bombing in the West Bank. Islamic Jihad

2006 January 19 Palestinian suicide bomber at sandwich stand in Tel Aviv. 30 wounded. Islamic Jihad

March 30 A Palestinian suicide bomber kills four Israelis in West Bank. Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades

April 17 Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight at stand in Tel Aviv. Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades

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