Police wrestle Palestinian bomber to ground

JERUSALEM - Israeli police yesterday grappled with a suspected Palestinian suicide bomber and seized a bag packed with explosives and nails.

In another incident, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian woman attempting to avoid an army checkpoint on her way to work.

The two confrontations kept tensions running high and there was little optimism that a Mideast cease-fire declared a month ago would end nearly 10 months of fighting.

In the northern Israeli town of Afula, police jumped on a suspected Palestinian suicide bomber and grabbed a bag packed with explosives and nails from him as he tried unsuccessfully to detonate the bomb.

Police sealed off the city and asked residents to remain indoors while security forces searched for the man's suspected accomplice.

The incident began when three plainclothes detectives in an unmarked car noticed a Palestinian man acting suspiciously, said police spokesman Yaron Zamir.

When a policeman yelled at the man, he began running. The detectives jumped on him and threw him to the ground as he pressed a switch in his hand, apparently trying to detonate the bomb in the bag.

After the policemen wrestled the bag from the man's hands, they noticed an electric wire with a detonator coming out of one side of it, Zamir said.

Sappers were called to the scene and later safely detonated a pipe bomb.

The bomb was set to go off when the detonator was pressed and not by remote control or timer, evidence that the Palestinian intended to blow up himself with the device, Zamir said. The suspect was a 30-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank town of Jenin.

Meanwhile, outside the West Bank town of Hebron, Rasmia Jabarin, a 38-year-old mother of two, was shot while travelling in a car on a back road in an attempt to avoid an Israeli army checkpoint and reach her job on an Israeli farm, Palestinians said.

She was evacuated to Israel's Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, but died of her wounds.

Earlier yesterday, Israeli tanks and bulldozers rumbled into the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip and destroyed a row of houses. The Israelis said the homes were used by Palestinian militants as cover for daily gunfire and grenade attacks on an army position.

Palestinian officials said about 160 people were made homeless in the operation.

For the second day in a row, United States State Department spokesman Richard Boucher criticised Israeli destruction of Palestinian houses, calling the moves "highly provocative."

Russia also urged Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes, saying it could only lead to more bloodshed.

- REUTERS

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