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The drawing was published on Sunday, when Britain marked Holocaust Memorial Day.

The affair, which drew passionate debate in Britain on Tuesday, seemed to offer a mirror image of controversies in recent years involving cartoons that Muslims found to be offensive.

In a message on Twitter on Monday, Mr. Murdoch wrote that the artist who drew the cartoon, Gerald Scarfe, "has never reflected the opinions of The Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon."

The drawing showed Mr. Netanyahu holding a trowel and included the lines: "Israel elections. Will cementing the peace continue?" The wall in the cartoon was apparently a reference to the barrier Israel has built between itself and the West Bank.

Stephen Pollard, the editor of Britain's Jewish Chronicle weekly newspaper, said in a BBC radio segment on Tuesday that the timing of the cartoon was "grotesque." It reflected "the worst anti-Semitic blood libel," which was common in cartoons in Arabic newspapers in the Middle East, he said.

But, appearing on the same broadcast, Steve Bell, a cartoonist for The Guardian, responded in a heated discussion that when Mr. Scarfe depicted President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in a similarly confrontational light there had been "not a squeak" of criticism.

The debate also spread to Israel where columnist Anshel Pfeffer wrote on the Haaretz newspaper Web site. "Should The Sunday Times have not published the cartoon on International Holocaust Memorial Day? Only if one believes that is a day in which Israeli politicians have immunity from being caricatured."

Mr. Scarfe is one of Britain's best-known cartoonists and his works has appeared in The Sunday Times since 1967. The Jewish Chronicle quoted Mr. Scarfe as saying he "very much regrets" the timing the cartoon's publication. In a message to the newspaper, he "said that he had not been aware it was Holocaust Memorial Day," The Jewish Chronicle reported.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the main representative body for British Jews, said it had complained to the Press Complaints Commission, the body by which British newspapers regulate themselves.

Like, Mr. Pollard, the board said the cartoon "is shockingly reminiscent of the blood libel imagery more usually found in parts of the virulently anti-Semitic Arab press."

Initially, The Sunday Times defended its decision to publish the cartoon, British news reports said, saying it was "aimed squarely at Mr. Netanyahu and his policies, not at Israel, let alone at Jewish people. It appeared yesterday because Mr. Netanyahu won the Israeli election last week."

But Martin Ivens, the acting editor of The Sunday Times, said the newspaper would not countenance insults to the memory of Holocaust victims or blood libel, a term denoting medieval superstitions falsely accusing Jews of using the blood of children in rituals.

"The paper has long written strongly in defense of Israel and its security concerns, as have I as a columnist," he said in a statement published by the Press Association news agency. "We are, however, reminded of the sensitivities in this area by the reaction to the cartoon, and I will, of course, bear them very carefully in mind in future."

Mr. Ivens planned to meet British Jewish leaders on Tuesday to apologize in person for the cartoon.