TEL AVIV (Reuters) - An apparent gangland bombing killed at least two people and wounded more than 19 others at a money-changer's shop in Tel Aviv Thursday, police said.

One of Israel's most well-known underworld figures was slightly wounded in the blast that blew out storefronts on busy Yehuda Halevy street in the country's business capital, his lawyers said.

In scenes reminiscent of Palestinian suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis in three years of violence, ambulances raced to the area and radio stations interrupted their regular broadcasts to report on the explosion.

"We think it is apparently a criminally related explosion, we have still not ruled out other possibilities," said deputy Tel Aviv police chief David Krause. "There are two dead and more than 19 wounded."

A Reuters correspondent saw one body, limbless, on the floor at the front of the money-changer's shop.

"It was a tremendous, tremendous explosion," a witness, identified only as Eyal, told Army Radio.

The last big attack in Israel occurred on October 4 when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowded Israeli beach restaurant in Haifa, killing 23 other people.