Israel's interim government decided on Tuesday to limit a response to Monday's deadly suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, refraining from a major military action against the Hamas-led Palestinian government, the Ha'aretz daily reported.

The Palestinian National Authority now led by Hamas, however, will be held responsible for the suicide attack, the paper quoted a political source as saying.

Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to decide Israel's response to the suicide attack, which was claimed by the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), another radical group that has been involved in most attacks against Israel since last year.

Among measures approved at the cabinet were the revocation of Israeli residency status of Hamas officials living in East Jerusalem and a police crackdown on smuggling of Palestinians without permits into the Jewish state.

The cabinet measures came one day after a suicide bomber detonated at a fastfood stand near the old central bus station in southern Tel Aviv at lunch time Monday, leaving nine civilians dead and dozens of others wounded.

In an initial response to the attack, Israeli army bombarded a metal workshop in the Gaza Strip Monday night, causing no injuries.

The army said the strike targeted a building used by the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for constructing homemade rockets to fire at Israel.

In another move, Israel Defense Forces troops on Tuesday morning raided a West Bank village near Jenin and arrested three people linked to the suicide bomber, including his father.

Monday's attack came amid the weeklong Jewish Passover holiday, which will ends on Wednesday.

It was the first deadliest attack inside Israel since Hamas came to power in late March.

Although Hamas has largely stayed away from suicide attacks against Israel since a mutual ceasefire reached in March 2005, it defended Monday's attack as a "self-defense."

As Olmert and senior cabinet ministers met on Tuesday, a senior minister in the Hamas-led government said that Palestinians had the right to defend themselves against Israel in any way possible.

Source: Xinhua