Suicide bomber kills Israeli woman at bus stop

An Israeli woman was killed in a suicide bombing yesterday, after a bus driver and a passenger pinned the bomber to the ground and almost certainly saved several other lives.

But in the Gaza Strip, the killing went on unabated: two more Palestinians, one of them a 12-year-old boy, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers. The number killed in the Gaza Strip this week rose to 20, with Israeli raids continuing despite international condemnation.

Sixteen people were injured in the suicide bombing yesterday morning in Bnei Brak, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The driver of a bus, Baruch Neuman, was hailed as a hero by Israelis who believed his actions had prevented a much greater toll of casualties.

"I opened the door to let people on and off, and before I closed the back door I noticed a man trying to sneak on to the bus," Mr Neuman said.

"I shut the door, and apparently the man fell on to the road and hurt himself." Mr Neuman said he quickly got up and went to help the man. A passenger, reported to be a doctor, and a woman paramedic also went to help.

"We opened his shirt and saw an explosives belt strapped on to his body," Mr Neuman said. "I was in shock. The man who was with me shouted that we should each grab one of the bomber's hands and not let him move so he couldn't detonate himself.

"Meanwhile, the bomber, who was conscious, began fighting us, and we yelled for all of the passengers on the bus, as well as those close by, to clear the area."

Mr Neuman and the male passenger held the bomber's hands pinned to the ground while the other passengers ran. Then, Mr Neuman said, the other passenger suggested they both let go at once and run for it. When they did, the bomber got up, ran towards a group of people at a bus stop near by and detonated his bomb. The dead woman was identified as 71-year-old Se'ada Aharon.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the suicide bombing, but a spokesman for Hamas said it was a response to this week's killings of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

America has already urged Israel to show restraint, apparently fearing reprisals will undermine its chances of winning Arab support for any military action against Iraq.

Two more Palestinians were killed yesterday when Israeli tanks raided Rafah refugee camp in the south of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses said. One, Saher al-Hout, a 12-year-old boy, was hit by Israeli fire as he stood in a street near the fighting. The other victim, 18-year-old Ihab al-Mghaiar, was shot in the chest, doctors said. Witnesses said he was not armed.

The Israeli army has launched repeated raids on the Gaza Strip recently, firing on heavily populated areas with scant regard for civilian life. On Monday, an Israeli helicopter fired a rocket into a crowd that contained women and children, as well as Palestinian militants. Ten people were killed. The hospital where the wounded were taken was itself hit by Israeli gunfire – the Israeli army said it was responding to mortar fire – and one man, a hospital worker, was hit and died.

Two more Palestinian teenagers were killed in the Rafah area on Wednesday. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli soldiers in tanks opened fire with machine-guns on a group of youths throwing stones at them.

The Israeli army said its soldiers had responded after coming under fire.