JERUSALEM, Israel - August 7, 2011 - Trading on Israel's Tel Aviv stock exchange was temporarily halted on Sunday after share prices fell 6% at the open on news of a U.S. credit rating downgrade, public radio reported.

Trading opened as normal on Sunday, the first day of Israel's working week, but mandatory suspensions went into effect minutes into the session as the stock exchange plunged.

After the first two short suspensions, the indices failed to stabilize sufficiently, prompting the exchange to authorize a 45-minute suspension.

The delay allowed trading to return within the 5% band, and trading resumed shortly afterwards, but both indices quickly began to fall further.

At 11:36 am (0836 GMT), the benchmark TA-25 index was down 6.07% at 1,084.84, while the TA-100 had slipped 6.49% to be at 9,80.19.

The session on Sunday was the first on the Israeli bourse since the international agency Standard & Poor's said it was downgrading the United States' credit rating to AA+ from the top-notch triple-A.

The announcement panicked international markets and was criticized by Washington as unjustified.

In Israel, the stock market plunge also came a day after massive nationwide protests over the high cost of living and income disparity in the Jewish state.