Tel Aviv: A Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least nine people and wounded 60 others in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Monday  in an attack a spokesman for Hamas called an act of "self-defence".

The Israeli government of acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it held the new Hamas-led Palestinian National Authority responsible for the bombing, which was claimed by the Islamic Jihad group.

Olmert said he was weighing a response, adding the attack could have been timed to coincide with the swearing in of Israel's new parliament in occupied Jerusalem following March elections.

The bombing occurred at a sandwich stand in the middle of a Jewish holiday. Medics put the number killed at nine, not including the bomber.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the bombing.

It was the first suicide bombing inside the Jewish state to kill Israelis since Olmert took over from Ariel Sharon in early January.

An Arab television station aired a video tape showing a baby-faced militant from Islamic Jihad, holding an assault rifle, and said he carried out the attack.

"We tell the criminal enemy that there are more martyrdom-seekers, God willing," said Sami Salim Hamadah, 18, from near Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

Family members said Hamad worked as a waiter in Jenin and told his employer on Sunday he would not be coming back to work.

Witnesses said they saw him just before the attack.

Olmert said Israel would respond appropriately.

"We will know how to respond in the way and manner required, and we will continue to act with all means at our disposal to thwart further such incidents," he said.

An Olmert spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said the government held the new PNA responsible.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the attack "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes against our people".

"Our people are in a state of self-defence and they have every right to use all means to defend themselves," he said.

In the United States, the White House called the bombing a "despicable act of terror".

"We condemn the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in the strongest possible terms. This is a despicable act of terror for which there is no excuse or justification," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Russia along with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations part of the so-called quartet which proposed a "road map" for Middle East peace called on both sides to resume negotiations for peace.

"We firmly and without reserve condemn this bloody attack by extremists who have again raised a hand against people who are guilty of nothing," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

It called on the Palestinian leadership to do the "maximum possible" to stop all violence against Israel and also called on the Israeli leadership to exercise restraint to prevent "wide confrontation" in the region.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana also called for an end to violence.

"I call on all parties to prevent any new descent into a senseless spiral of violence," he said.

Meanwhile, French President Jacques Chirac said he condemned the attack in "most categorical fashion" in a message to Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier also issued a warning to the new Palestinian government to rein in terrorists.

At a glance
Nine suicide attacks since February 2005 truce

Palestinian militants have carried out nine suicide attacks in Israel and the West Bank since a February 8, 2005, truce declaration. All but one attack have been carried out by Islamic Jihad, a violent group with close ties to Iran.

- April 17, 2006: A bomber blows himself up at the same Tel Aviv restaurant targeted in January, killing seven people.

- March 30, 2006: A bomber disguised as a Jewish hitchhiker blows himself up in a car outside a West Bank colony, killing four Israelis who had stopped to pick him up. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, claims responsibility.

- January 19, 2006: A bomber disguised as a peddler blows himself up in a Tel Aviv felafel stand, wounding 20 people.

- December 29, 2005: A bomber explodes at an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank, killing an Israeli soldier and two Palestinians.

- December 5: A bomber blows himself up at a shopping mall in the coastal town of Netanya, killing five.

- October 26: A bomber blows himself up in Hadera at a food stand, killing five.

- August 28: A bomber blows himself up in the southern city of Beersheba, killing only himself.

- July 12: A bomber blows himself up outside a shopping mall in Netanya, killing five.

- Febuary 25, 2005: In the first attack after a truce, a bomber blows himself up in crowd near a Tel Aviv nightclub, killing four.