CAIRO, Egypt – In the wake of yesterday’s suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Netanya, Israel, the campaign of Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding a “fast and strong” response from Prime Minister Sharon.

Mr. Netanyahu’s chief of staff and campaign manager, Yechiel Leiter, said yesterday that the bombings proved that Israel should never have unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza or temporarily stopped construction of the security barrier that separates Israeli territory from Palestinian Arab population centers. The line of political attack came a day after Mr. Netanyahu suggested that he would authorize pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities if elected again to his old position as premier.

Mr. Sharon, who last month left Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud to form his own party, yesterday called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet to discuss a response to the attack.

Responsibility for the bombing was claimed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization that has not abided by a cease-fire agreement that was reached in February and is due to expire next week.

The bombing killed five people and injured 40 more. Its impact on Israeli politics could be significant. Mr. Netanyahu, who opposed Mr. Sharon’s withdrawal plan, could stand to benefit if Israelis come to see the prime minister’s latest overtures as undermining national security when they go to the polls in March.

Mr. Leiter yesterday denied a connection between his boss’s political prospects and the latest terror attack. “I don’t think there is a connection between the campaign and the Netanya bombing. We have to separate terrorism from the political process,” Mr. Leiter said. “But the position is we never should have acted unilaterally, we never should have rewarded terrorism. We should build the fence and then have the Supreme Court deal with it. When it comes to human life it has to take precedence over judicial issues.”

Mr. Netanyahu yesterday received a boost in his race for leadership of Likud with the endorsement of a member of the Israeli parliament, Uzi Landau. In his press conference yesterday, Mr. Landau said the disengagement from Gaza “gave new life to terror,” and warned that more attacks would come. Mr. Leiter yesterday said the endorsement from Mr. Landau was significant because he “represents the ideological integrity of the party.” Mr. Netanyahu’s remaining major challengers in Likud are the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, and the defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, both of whom remained in the Sharon government after the withdrawal from Gaza.

The emphasis from the Netanyahu camp on disengagement was in contrast to the reaction of Mr. Sharon’s government, which stressed yesterday that the bombings proved how little the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has done to disarm terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Today’s attack in Netanya happened first and foremost because the Palestinian Authority refuses to take any meaningful steps to prevent such terror,” an official in the prime minister’s office, David Baker, wrote in an e-mail to The New York Sun. “The PA refuses to arrest and incarcerate terrorists. It refuses to disarm and dismantle its terror organizations.”

America, Europe, the United Na tions, and Russia in a joint statement yesterday, condemned the attacks and urged Syria to close down offices of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But the statement yesterday also urged, in language reminiscent of the Oslo process, all parties to “exercise restraint, avoid an escalation of violence, and keep the channels of communication open.”

The Associated Press yesterday quoted Israeli security officials as saying that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad would be targeted by the military and that targeted killings would resume in response to the attacks. However, one Israeli official who spoke with the Sun on condition of anonymity stressed that Israel’s response would be tempered so as not to “humiliate Abbas as he is preparing for Palestinian elections.”

Mr. Netanyahu has become more hawkish in recent days in his race for the leadership of Likud. On Sunday, during an interview with the Maariv newspaper, Mr. Netanyahu invoked Prime Minister Begin’s decision to bomb the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. He said, “I will continue the tradition established by Menachem Begin, who did not allow Iraq to develop such a nuclear threat against Israel, and by a daring and courageous act gave us two decades of tranquility.”

Mr. Leiter yesterday said, “I think there is frustration to go around on diplomacy and Iran.” He added, “We are dealing with a nuclear umbrella for the worst terrorist groups in the world.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s words Sunday appeared to be aimed at Mr. Sharon, who thus far has publicly endorsed the European and American-led diplomatic talks with Iran at Vienna under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.