Palestinian leader condemns another attack on Israelis

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned a suicide bombing attack on Monday which killed at least five people and injured dozens more at a shopping mall in the Israeli city of Netanya. "We will hunt down those responsible for this terrorist attack," Abbas said in a statement, released by the PA in Ramallah.

"These operations against civilians cause the greatest damage to our committment to the peace process... and the Palestinian Authority will not show indulgence towards anyone who is found responsible for this operation," the statement said.

According to Israeli newsreports, the late morning attack occurred when Lutfi Amin Abu Salem, a 21-year-old Palestinian man from the West bank village of Kafr Rai near Jenin, detonated explosives he was carrying near the entrance of the Hasharon mall in Netanya.

It was not immediately clear who organised the attack with some Palestinian media saying they had received a message from the radical Islamic Jihad group that it carried our the attack. Earlier, another report cited the al-Aqsa Brigades, claiming they were responsible for the attack, but was later denied by the group which is linked to Abbas' Fatah movement.

In July 2005 five people were killed when an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber blew himself up near the shopping mall, AKI reports.

V.Y.