A suicide bomber targeted off duty Israeli soldiers at rush hour tonight, killing at least seven people, in at attack that the country had been braced for.
More than 30 people were injured, most of them seriously, in the bombing at a bus stop near both the Assaf Harofeh hospital and the Tsrifim army base in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Letzion.
Security officials said there were many soldiers at the bus stop. Ambulances, apparently dispatched from the nearby hospital, quickly lined up at to pick up the wounded.
The bodies of the dead lay scattered on the pavement and street. Police said they believed the suicide bomber was among them.
The walls of a nearby bus shelter were splattered with blood and the street was littered with body parts.
The attack occurred about 6 p.m. (1600 BST) just as soldiers were returning home.
The bomber - who may have been a woman clad in long robes -- had been seen stepping from a car and going up to a group of soldiers when the bomb went off.
Israel had been on high alert for terror attacks following Saturday's botched attempt to kill Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
An official from the militant Hamas group - which has carried out most of the 101 suicide bombings against Israel in the last three years of fighting - did not say whether the group was behind the attack.
Hamas had threatened revenge for recent Israeli air strikes targeting militant leaders.
Spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi said: "This operation, whoever is behind it, is a natural reaction for the bloody aggression against our people, the assassination of our people, the killing of our children, demolishing our houses, and terrorising our innocent people."
David Baker, an official in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is visiting India, said: "The attack today is further indication that the Palestinian Authority is doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to rein in terrorists or to dismantle the terror infrastructure in their areas."
Palestinian MP Saeb Ereket condemned the attack, saying the Palestinians urge the United States and the international community to "de-escalate the violence and implement the road map."
But Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said "the responsibility is shared between the organisation that carried out the atrocity and the Palestinian Authority that did nothing to prevent it, and Israel will react accordingly."
AP