Israel and Palestinians have exchanged accusations over who is responsible for increasing violence after Monday's blast in Tel Aviv and Israeli attacks in Gaza. The Israeli and Palestinian envoys at the UN traded charges at an open Security Council meeting held on Monday. The meeting followed the recent upsurge in Israeli attacks in Gaza and after a Palestinian suicide bomber struck a crowded fast-food restaurant in Tel Aviv, killing nine and wounding dozens in the deadliest bombing in more than a year.Israel said a new "axis of terror" - Iran, Syria and the Hamas-run Palestinian government - was sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century. Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador, told the Security Council that Monday's "horrific act of terrorism as well as the ones that preceded it are the direct result of the new axis of terror" made up of Iran and Syria and the "terrorist organisations they have been harbouring, nurturing, financing and supporting, namely Hamas and Hezbollah".
Recent statements by Hamas leaders - refusing to recognise Israel, and by Iran's president who said on Saturday that Israel was a "rotten, dried tree" that was "on the road to being eliminated" - represented "the stated goal of this axis of terror", which was again executed in Monday's bombing, he said.