It cast further doubt over how long Israel would stick to a declared "limited unilateral ceasefire" which already looked in tatters.

Police said at least 17 people had been killed, including the bomber, and more than 60 injured.

The blast at a club in a seaside complex along a beachfront promenade lined with palm trees caused carnage. Women wept and young victims lay groaning on the ground being comforted by rescue workers. Pools of blood covered the pavement.

"A man with explosives on him blew himself up at the entrance to the club and caused many casualties," Tel Aviv police chief Yossi Setbon told Army Radio.

Israel Radio said dozens of people had been taken to hospital and that many were in a serious condition. The blast at the Pacha nightclub took place shortly before midnight.

Before the blast, at least 450 Palestinians, 91 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs had been killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule erupted eight months ago after peace talks deadlocked.

In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Mary Ellen Countryman said: "I was about to enter (the nightclub) and heard the boom. I was thrown back and fell on the ground. Bodies and body parts were all around me...I can only be ashamed of this country," Rotem, an 18-year-old witness, said.

"PEOPLE BLOWN APART"

Avi, a waiter from a nearby nightclub, said that many of the victims had been enjoying a night out on the Jewish Sabbath. After the blast, a long line of ambulances stood in the road, their lights flashing.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups have vowed to carry out more bomb attacks following a string of bomb attacks in recent months.

The scene at the nightclub was a sharp contrast to the events earlier in the day in Jerusalem, when the funeral of a senior Palestinian official passed off without major violence.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians marched through East Jerusalem behind the coffin of Faisal al-Husseini, the most senior Palestinian official for Jerusalem, turning mourning into an outpouring of defiance against Israeli rule.

Israeli police stood aside as youths raised Palestinian flags over Jerusalem's Old City and outside Israeli government buildings as the flag-draped coffin was carried through the city that Husseini had hoped to make the Palestinian capital.

Police were out in force but made little effort to dampen what Palestinians said was their biggest display of nationalist fervour inside Jerusalem since Israel annexed the Arab eastern section of the city in 1967.

"This is extraordinary. East Jerusalem was run by our people -- the Israelis were still there but they were also not there. We felt Jerusalem for the first time was liberated," Mohammed Nabulsy, a 27-year-old shopkeeper, said.

The 15 members of the United Nations Security Council in New York stood in a moment of silence. The request to mourn Husseini came from Bangladesh, this month's council president.

(China Daily 06/02/2001)