Israeli prime minister Mr Ariel Sharon vowed this evening that Israel would strike Palestinian militants with "all force" after a suicide bombing killed three people and wounded more than a dozen in Jerusalem.
"In many cases we prevent heavy disasters. Sometimes things happen like what happened today. But we intend to continue our struggle against terror with all force," Mr Sharon said on Israeli television.
He was being interviewed at the time of the blast.
A female Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up near a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem today, killing one person and wounding at least 14 others.
The explosion occurred at a busy intersection in French Hill, a Jewish neighbourhood close to the West Bank.
The neighbourhood has been attacked by suicide bombers in the past. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group loosely linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to The Associated Press.
Israeli rescue workers reported one dead and 14 wounded, at least one in serious condition.
It was the first Palestinian suicide bombing since August 31st, when a pair of attackers killed 16 people in the southern city of Beersheba, and the first to strike Jerusalem since February 22nd.
Palestinian militants have staged more than 100 suicide bombings inside Israel during four years of fighting.
Women have carried out at least eight of the attacks. Most of the women were tied to the Al Aqsa group, although the Islamic groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have also dispatched women.
Earlier Mr Sharon renewed his threat to remove Mr Yasser Arafat, saying the Palestinian president would "get what he deserves".
Mr Sharon told Israel Radio his government would take action against Arafat at a time of its choosing as it did in assassinating two Hamas leaders this year in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have made threats against Mr Arafat before, but political sources say such a move is unlikely as long as the United States, Israel's close ally, strongly opposes it.
Mr Sharon , a former general, suggested in an Israeli newspaper interview last week that Israel might either assassinate Mr Arafat or expel him from the Palestinian territories.
Mr Sharon 's new threat comes as he struggles to soften resistance from right-wingers in his coalition to his plan to evacuate Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, a territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.