AL QUDS, Jan 27: A suicide bombing, the first by a Palestinian woman in the bloody conflict, ripped through a street on Sunday, killing one Israeli and injuring at least 37 others, police and rescue services said.

The blast gutted a shoe shop, just metres from the Sbarro pizzeria on Jaffa Road where 15 people were killed by a Hamas suicide bomber on Aug 9, police said.

Despite heavy security deployed after a spate of bloody attacks on Jaffa Road, Sunday’s bomber managed to set off a massive device, police said.

Al-Manar, the television channel of Lebanese group Hezbollah, reported the woman was a student at al-Najah University, which enjoys a reputation as a hothouse for Hamas, in the West Bank town of Nablus.

Three arms, one of them a woman’s, were found in the street among other body parts, as emergency workers picked through the bloodied broken glass for charred flesh.

Workers covered two bodies with tarpaulin, as police cordoned off the area for the second time in five days.

A city bus across the street was left abandoned, its windshield a web of shattered glass, after passengers piled out of the vehicle to escape the pandemonium that erupted after the blast rocked the city centre.

Shop-fronts were gutted, their glass and metal framework blown down the street as rescue workers rushed in to evacuate the injured, many of them covered in blood.

Three of the injured were in serious condition, Israeli emergency services said.

City police chief Micki Levy suffered a heart attack shortly after the blast, officials said.

Visiting the scene for the second time in a week, Al Quds Mayor Ehud Olmert placed the blame for the bombing squarely on the Palestinian leader.

“Yasser Arafat is personally, individually and directly in charge and he is responsible - I have no doubt about it,” he said, warning, “The worst is perhaps to come.”

Police failed to stop the bombing despite being on high alert, but police official Shlomo Aharonishky said: “The police presence seems to have prevented carnage by keeping the terrorist from a more populated are, but it is impossible to avoid such attacks 100 per cent.”

He added: “Al Quds is a favourite target for terrorists because it has a mixed population and it is easy to cross from the West Bank.”

Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, echoed Mr Olmert’s comments.

“Arafat is responsible since he encourages terrorists to commit suicide acts,” he charged.

He said a speech Mr Arafat made in Ramallah late Saturday in which he prayed to God for martyrdom in Al Quds was a clear call to Palestinian youths to blow themselves up in the disputed city.

Mr Arafat, quoted in the Israeli press, said in a speech to supporters in the West Bank town on Saturday: “Please God, give me the honour of being one of holy Jerusalem’s martyrs.”

CONDEMNATION: EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana swiftly condemned the suicide bombing in Al Quds and appealed to both the Palestinians and Israel to end the bloodshed.