Sixteen people were killed and 200 injured in a suicide bombing followed by retaliatory Israeli air strikes yesterday in one of the bloodiest days since a Palestinian uprising erupted nearly eight months ago.
In its biggest escalation since the latest cycle of violence began, Israel sent its warplanes on missile attacks in Palestinian-ruled areas for the first time.
The Israeli strikes, in which at least nine people died and 90 were wounded at Palestinian security headquarters in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, came as reprisals for a suicide bombing that brought carnage to an Israeli shopping mall just hours earlier.
The bomber, a 21-year-old member of the militant Islamic group Hamas, killed six people and himself and wounded 110 in the seaside city of Netanya, just north of Tel Aviv, when he detonated explosives attached to a belt around his waist.
At a rally in Gaza, Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing and said it was in response to the killing of five Palestinian paramilitary policemen on Monday in the West Bank. Israel has since called that attack a mistake.
Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a leader of the military wing of Hamas whom Israel considers the most wanted Palestinian militant on the West Bank, escaped from his prison cell in Nablus after Israeli missiles destroyed the compound, a Palestinian security source said.
In a simultaneous strike, missiles slammed into a building housing members of President Yasser Arafat's Force 17 security apparatus in the West Bank city of Ramallah, witnesses said.
"We warn against this serious escalation against our people and we urge the international community and especially the United States to immediately intervene to halt Israeli aggression", Mr Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for President Arafat, said.
A spokesman for Mr Sharon said Israel's response matched the severity of the Netanya bombing. "It's part of Israel's ongoing fight against those who direct terror", he said. "The fingerprints of the Palestinian Authority are all over it".
Israel's use of its F-16 fighter planes marked a major increase in its military campaign against the uprising.