A suspected Palestinian Resistance bomber blew himself up on a bus in Tel Aviv on Thursday, killing at least five people and wounding about 40 others, police said. The blast followed a Palestinian Resistance bombing in northern Israel on Wednesday which killed an Israeli policeman and ended a six-week lull since the previous Resistance attack, raising fears in Israel of a new bombing wave and again dimming peace hopes.

Ambulances raced to the busy tree-lined Allenby Street where the bus exploded in central Tel Aviv, near cafes and restaurants packed during the busy lunch hour and close to the main synagogue in Israel's commercial capital.

The explosion shattered windows and damaged shop fronts.
The two blasts in successive days further clouded peace hopes after two years of Israeli-Palestinian violence, despite a new peace plan outlined this week by international mediators.

In Wednesday's bombing, the bomber killed himself and an Israeli policeman in northern Israel. That was the first Resistance bombing since August 4.

In other violence on Thursday, Israeli occupation soldiers shot dead a 10-year-old Palestinian boy who was stoning an Israeli tank in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, Palestinian doctors and witnesses said. The oocupation army had no immediate comment.

In the town of Abu Dis on the edge of East Jerusalem, the occupation army demolished the homes of the families of two Palestinian youths who blew themselves up in Jerusalem last December and killed 11 people.

On Wednesday, Palestinians shot dead an Israeli motorist and a Jewish settler in separate attacks, and Israeli occupation soldiers killed a Palestinian they suspected of planning an attack.

OCCUPATION ARMY MAKES ARRESTS

The army said it arrested seven suspected activists in the West Bank, where it sent troops after resistance bombings in June and imposed curfews. On Wednesday the army said it lifted the curfew for a few hours in Jenin and Nablus.

There was no curfew in Tulkarm, Qalqilya and part of Hebron, but it remained in Ramallah, confining Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to his West Bank headquarters.

Witnesses in Jenin said the occupation army razed the home of a family that lost two members killed in an Israeli anti-activist sweep in April.

In a statement on its Web Site, Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for Wednesday's bombing, in which a Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop in the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.

PHOTO CAPTION

At least five people have been killed and at least 40 were wounded after a bomber blew up explosives on a bus in central Tel Aviv, Israeli police said on September 19. REUTERS
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