Bomb rocks Israeli shopping centre
Netanya police immediately sealed off the area
Five people are reported dead and many more injured after a powerful bomb explosion in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya.
The explosion was carried out by a suspected suicide bomber at the entrance to a shopping mall - witnesses said the blast could be heard hundred of metres away.
The bomb attack comes after a week of escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli government spokesmen immediately blamed Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority for the attack.
Israeli media reports say security men at the shopping centre refused to let a man into the mall, and he then blew himself up.
"We are speaking of a suicide bomber who blew up a bomb at the entrance to the Hasharon mall. As a result of the explosions, there are a number of killed, the number of which is not as yet clear, " Assistant Police Commander Aharon Franco told Israeli television:
"We are speaking of 30 to 35 wounded, the majority of them slightly," he said.
Some of the injured have been airlifted to hospital.
Cabinet meeting
"I saw a young man who looked like an Arab wearing a huge blue jacket and I said, 'Look, that's a terrorist'," an eyewitness told Israel radio.
"It was a very big blast and I think that many people were killed," another witness told the radio.
The Israeli cabinet is meeting to discuss its response to the attack. It has launched fierce attacks on Palestinian targets after previous bomb attacks.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Netanya is only 10 kilometres from the West Bank and has been the target of a number of attacks by Palestinian militants in recent months.
Increased confrontation
The blast comes at a time when the conflict has been escalating.
On Monday Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinian policemen in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
And two days ago the Israelis announced they were establishing outposts just within Palestinian-controlled parts of Gaza as a defensive move to prevent further attacks on Israel.
The BBC Jerusalem correspondent says the Netanya bomb comes just as Israel made a gesture of goodwill by offering a partial compromise on the question of the expansion of Jewish settlements - it was a move the Palestinians have rejected.
Israeli Government spokesman Dan Meridor immediately blamed the Palestinian Authority for the blast.
"They've succeeded again in killing Jews which is their goal - this is the type of enemy we are facing," he said.
Speaking to the BBC, another spokesman, Avi Pazner, said Israel was paying a heavy price for "the policy Arafat has been leading" since the current uprising began at the end of September.
"If you listen to Palestinian radio and watch Palestinian television, you would see what incitement is like... 24 hours a day incitement to hit at Israel and to kill and to maim and to wound, " Mr Pazner said.
The Palestinian leadership has consistently denied any connection with such attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took office in
March with a mandate to bring security to
Israel, but so far has failed to stop attacks on
Jews both within Israel and on Jewish
settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank
-- Anonymous, May 18, 2001