HIGHLIGHTS: :Suspicious Bus Passangers Report Bomber to Occupation Troops||Bomber Believed to Have Been on His Way to Afula||Election Committee Meets Without Gaza Members || STORY: A Palestinian blew himself up near a police patrol in northern Israel Monday in the second Palestinian bombing in less than 24 hours, occupation authority sources said. (Read photo caption)

The incident occurred Monday Morning near a bus stop at Taanachim Junction in the southern Galilee when a tall man wearing jeans and sports shoes tried to get on a bus picking up workers who were going to a nearby factory.

When told it was a private bus, he disembarked but suspicious passengers alerted the
police by mobile phone, police sources said.

The blast occurred when two members of a police patrol approached the man and asked for his identity papers.

Police believed the bomber was on his way to the nearby town of Afula, which has been a target of previous attacks.

The area is just on the Israeli side of the demarcation line between Israel and the West Bank and about 9 miles from Jenin, a focal point of the military campaign Israel unleashed in the West Bank at the end of March.

Monday's abortive attack followed a bombing in a vegetable market in the seaside town of Netanya Sunday in which the bomber killed three Israelis as well as himself.

INCURSIONS INTO RAMALLAH & TULKAREM

Meanwhile, hours after the Natanya attack, Palestinians said several Israeli armored vehicles rolled into part of the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's office is headquartered.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that an Israeli force entered the city, saying shots had been fired at an Israeli motorist traveling to a nearby West Bank settlement. The driver was unhurt, she added.

The troops withdrew a short time later, without any contact with Palestinians, the spokeswoman said.

At the same time, Palestinian security sources reported that hours after the Netanya attack, an Israeli infantry unit backed by three tanks went into Tulkarem at dawn Monday. Another unit went into the same are late Tuesday.

Israeli occupation army sources confirmed the incursions into Tulkarem adding that the occupation troops were searching for Resistance activists and that the have since left the city.  Palestinian sources say the troops are still there.

Tulkarem lies within 12 KMS from Netanya.

ELECTION COMMITTEE CONVENES WITHOUT GAZA MEMBERS

In Ramallah, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat postponed Sunday a meeting with his central election committee to discuss planned polls, as committee members from Gaza were unable to make it to the West Bank, a Palestinian official said.

Instead, the meeting of the West Bank members convened under the chairmanship of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's number two Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the official told AFP.

They discussed among other issues the difficulty of having polls at all levels when voters cannot move freely owing to Israeli travel restrictions.

They also discussed the issue of how Palestinians living in east Jerusalem would be able to cast their ballots.
Arafat could meet with the committee, as he had been scheduled to do, on Wednesday, if the Gaza members were able to make the trip, the official said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Police inspect the area of an explosion in Netanya, Israel Sunday May 19, 2002. Shortly after a warning of a bombing attack, a Palestinian bomber disguised in an army uniform slipped into a fruit and vegetable market and detonated his explosive, killing two Israelis. The overall number of injured was put at between 28 and 50, according to Israeli authorities. (AP Photo/Uriel Sina