One Israeli was critically wounded and more than 30 injured in two separate bomb attacks by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem yesterday.
Later yesterday, an 11-yearold Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli troops near the West Bank city of Hebron, a hospital official said.
The bombings intensified public pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to implement his so-called get-tough-on-terror platform.
In the first attack, in an industrial neighbourhood in the south of Jerusalem, five Israelis were slightly wounded when a car-bomb parked next to a shopping centre was detonated during morning rush hour.
The second attack took place six hours later, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the busy French Hill intersection in the north of Jerusalem, killing himself and injuring 28 people, one of them seriously. Police said the bomber detonated a nail-filled explosive device strapped to his waist as a passenger bus passed.
The fundamentalist Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for both attacks, which came less than 24 hours after Palestinian snipers in Hebron shot and killed a 10month-old infant in the West Bank city's Jewish enclave.
Mr Sharon laid the blame for both bombings on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who completed his speech to the Arab summit in Amman moments before the second bomb blast.
A spokesman for Mr Sharon, who was meeting army and security chiefs to discuss the morning bombing when the second explosion occurred, said the government's response "will be swift and will be coming".
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, an architect of the Oslo peace accords, vowed that Israel would "meet fire with fire", but he cautioned that there was no point in responding just "to make an impression. The response has to be at the right time."
Mr Peres added, however, that dialogue was the only way to end the violence. "We will do everything to ensure that the peace process does not die," he said.
Mr Sharon was criticised yesterday by opposition right-wing politicians and Jewish settlers who accused him of adopting a kid-glove approach to Palestinian violence. But aides to Mr Sharon said he wanted to wait until after the Arab summit before launching a response to the latest spate of attacks.
Mr Arafat's goal, they charged, was to escalate violence during the summit in an attempt to draw a harsh Israeli response so as to galvanise support and precipitate international intervention in the region.
One right-wing lawmaker demanded yesterday that the Israeli army re-conquer the Abu Sneina neighbourhood in Hebron, from which a Palestinian sniper fired at the Israeli infant.
Almost 350 Palestinians have been killed - almost all in clashes with Israeli troops - since the intifada erupted last September, while 67 Israelis have died in Palestinian attacks.
After the killing of the Israeli infant, Shalhevet Pass, settlers from the Israeli-controlled enclave in Hebron tried to take over several Palestinian homes in Abu Sneina overnight on Monday but were prevented from doing so by the Israeli army.
One settler and several Palestinians were injured in the clashes, and settlers vandalised several Palestinian cars.
In 1997 Israel handed 80 per cent of Hebron over to the Palestinians.
At least 17 Palestinians were injured in clashes yesterday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip when Israeli troops fired live ammunition and rubber-coated steel bullets at protesters.
In Amman, Mr Arafat accused Israel of state terrorism. However, he added that he was ready "to work jointly with Arab and international co-operation to confront this violence through returning to the table of negotiations".