Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil Shaath telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and expressed his condolences for the car bomb attack that killed two Israelis, Israeli public radio reported.
Shaath "expressed his deep regrets and said the Palestinian Authority had ordered its police to arrest the perpetrators of the attack," responsibility for which was claimed by the militant group Islamic Jihad, the report said.
Israeli police said at least nine people were also injured in the blast, after an explosives-packed car drove into a narrow street at the Mahane Yehuda open-air Jewish market -- a target of Islamic attacks in the past.
Barak condemned the attack as another "grave incident" in the wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has left more than 170 people dead over the past five weeks.
He pointed the finger at the Palestinian Authority, reproaching it for having freed a number of members of Islamic Jihad and its larger rival, Hamas, from prison recently.
Meanwhile, the leader of the secular Meretz party, Yossi Sarid, said Arafat had "deployed notable efforts to bring back calm (in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) but perhaps no longer controls the situation."
For his part, Israel's Tourism Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak said it was "necessary to continue dialogue with the Palestinians in the hope of reaching a resolution to this conflict" -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
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