A Palestinian suicide bomber killed five people and wounded at least 40 outside a shopping mall in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya Monday in the first attack of its kind in six weeks.

The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing and released a video showing the purported bomber wielding an assault rifle and rocket-propelled grenade launcher against the backdrop of the movement's black flag.

The attack dealt another blow to a shaky nine-month-old ceasefire and further dented peace hopes stirred by Israel's Gaza pullout in September.

"There was a boom and there was a flash. Seconds later, people were lying on the ground, some wounded and some dead," witness Yisrael Klein told Channel Two television. "The most horrific sight was the severed head of the terrorist."

The force of the blast splattered blood high on the shopping mall's stone and glass facade and sprayed body parts and debris in all directions.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon cancelled political meetings and consulted security chiefs on a military response to the attack, the second inside the Jewish state since Israel's Gaza withdrawal.

Scrambling to keep the truce from falling apart, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the bombing as a "terrorist attack." His office said he had "issued firm instructions to arrest those involved and those responsible ... and put them on trial."

Emergency officials put the death toll at five and said 40 people were wounded, seven of them seriously.

Bodies lay covered with blankets at the entrance to the Sharon mall in Netanya, a frequent target of suicide bombings during a five-year-old Palestinian uprising.

It was the first such bombing since October 26, when an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber killed six people in the coastal city of Hadera, just north of Netanya.

The Israeli military responded to the Hadera bombing and cross-border rocket fire from Gaza with missile strikes that killed senior militants. Islamic Jihad, sworn to Israel's destruction, had vowed revenge.

Bomber challenged by police

On Monday's bombing, a 21-year-old Palestinian was challenged by police when he tried to enter the mall.

"Two policemen at the scene pulled out their guns and ordered him to halt and to take his hands out of his pockets. At that stage, he blew himself up," said Avi Sasson, deputy police chief in the area.

The bombing could complicate the run-up to Israeli and Palestinian elections in coming months.

Abbas' office issued a statement saying: "This terrorist attack against civilians greatly harms our commitment to the peace process."

Abbas is struggling to install order in Palestinian areas ahead of a January parliamentary election whose preliminary stages have already been marred by internal violence.

Sharon is seeking re-election in March as head of a new centrist party he founded after carrying out the Gaza pullout over fierce opposition within his rightist Likud party. He has refused to resume peace talks with the Palestinians until they rein in militants.

(China Daily December 6, 2005)