RISHON LETSION Israel, (AFP) – A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded pool hall outside Tel Aviv yesterday, killing at least 15 other people, shattering any hopes of easing Middle East tensions just as Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon went into talks with US President George W Bush in Washington.

The Israeli prime minister immediately cut short his four-day trip to Washington and rushed home after the blast buried bodies in rubble and left at least 50 injured.

At around 11:00 pm (2000 GMT), the suicide bomber strolled with his explosives hidden in a suitcase into the Spiel club on the third-floor of a building in the industrial suburbs of Tel Aviv, police said.

“He went into the snooker club and blew himself up,” said Haim Cohen, police commander of the coastal region. “More than 50 people were wounded, some of them seriously.”

The human bombing, claimed by Islamic radicals Hamas, was the first to strike Israel since a young woman suicide bomber killed six other people on April 12 and prompted a strong reaction from Bush.

“There was a massive blast that really hit you in the face,” said one witness. “There were just people screaming and screaming from inside the building, covered in blood. Others were just running around, injured.”

Officials said several of the injured were taken to hospital in critical condition.

Sharon learned of the attack, and that it was a suicide bombing, during his Oval Office session, which made it possible for Bush “to personally convey his condolences” as well as “register his disgust at this wanton taking of innocent life,” US national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters.

The armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack in an anonymous call to AFP, saying it came in reprisal for the Israeli army’s deadly nine-day offensive in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin last month.

But the Palestinian Authority denounced the suicide attack in fear that the blast had tipped the balance of power in Sharon’s favour.

“The Palestinian leadership strongly denounces the attack,” the Palestinian Authority said in an official statement late last night.

“It considers that its timing, which came during a meeting between (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and (US President George W) Bush, only helps to support Israeli allegations that Palestinians do not want peace.”

At the same time, Uzi Landau, Israel’s minister of internal security, called for a tough military response: “We have to keep fighting. The harder we fight, the fewer attacks there will be.”

The blast came on a day that saw efforts to end the 36-day siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity run into a last-minute snag as no country would accept 13 trapped Palestinian militants slated for exile.

After two weeks of on-and-off talks, Israel finally said an agreement had been reached to banish 13 of the men topping its most wanted list, and send another 26 to a Palestinian prison in Gaza.

A deal would put an end to the last confrontation remaining from the April blitz across the West Bank, Israel’s largest military operation in 20 years.

At the last minute Italy, which negotiators had said was to host the 13 men, most of them from Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, said it had no intention of taking the men yet.

Before the bombing, Bush had announced he was sending George Tenet back to the region, nearly a year after the CIA chief first travelled to the Middle East in a failed bid to broker a ceasec fire between the Palestinian and the Israelis.