A Palestinian bomber killed three Israelis and himself, and injured dozens more, in a suicide attack in the centre of the coastal town of Netanyah yesterday morning - in what was apparently the first of 10 suicide bombings threatened by the radical Islamic movement Hamas to "greet" Israel's incoming Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon.
Police said that the death toll in the explosion, which sent severed limbs flying across the street, blew up market stalls and shattered shop windows, could have been far worse: The device was actually relatively small; it is suspected, furthermore, that the bomber intended either to board a bus, or to enter the packed market nearby, but was spotted by a policeman and detonated his explosives, instead, amid a crowd of pedestrians at a zebra-crossing.
In the immediate aftermath of the blast, a Palestinian who worked in the market was heavily beaten, amid mob cries of "Death to the Arabs". The man was in serious condition in hospital last night. Israel leaders issued public appeals to citizens not to take the law into their own hands.
The attack came on the fifth anniversary of a similar bombing in Tel Aviv; ironically, relatives of the victims of that 1996 blast gathered later yesterday for a memorial ceremony.
While not directly taking responsibility for the blast, Mr Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip, vowed that "resistance will continue until we push the occupiers out of our land". Hours earlier, Hamas issued a statement declaring that "10 potential martyrs are ready to strike the Zionist depths with their bodies and this will not take long . . . The world will see it on the first day the criminal Sharon takes power."
Mr Sharon, who defeated Labour's Mr Ehud Barak last month, is expected to take office on Wednesday, having reached a series of agreements with coalition partners in recent days. Yesterday, he initialled an accord with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, the third largest Knesset faction.
Israeli leaders blamed Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority for the upsurge in attacks inside Israel in recent days, charging that he has failed to urge his own people to end the violence, that he has released Hamas and other violent militants from Palestinian jails, and that some of his own Palestinian Authority personnel are themselves now involved in anti-Israel attacks.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mr Martin Indyk, yesterday urged Mr Arafat to resume security co-operation with Israel to prevent more attacks. But Mr Rehavam Ze'evi, a far-right politician due to become a minister in Mr Sharon's government, derided the notion of such a partnership. "If we rely on Arafat", he said, "we'll get another 50 years just like the past five months".
Mr Shlomo Ben-Ami, the outgoing Foreign Minister, said Mr Arafat no longer exerted control over the Palestinian areas. Those areas were now "very close to anarchy", he said, and the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian security co-operation "reflects the disintegration of the whole concept of [the] Oslo [peace process]".
The police and the army have stepped up their deployment along Israel's border with the West Bank for fear of further attacks, and the government is keeping the West Bank and Gaza Strip sealed off. Nevertheless, Israeli officials acknowledge that the West Bank border is simply too long and porous to seal hermetically. Indeed, three dozen Palestinians who had entered Israel illegally to work were arrested in the immediate area of yesterday's bombing.