Israel Captures Would-Be Bomber

Israeli troops caught a Palestinian would-be suicide bomber after he opened fire on a military patrol conducting searches outside a Palestinian village near the West Bank border, the army said today.

“The terrorist fired at army jeeps outside Anin village, but the soldiers subdued and interrogated him,” a spokeswoman said. “He led them to a bomb belt he had hidden close by and, we believe, was planning to detonate later in Israel.”

The incident late Saturday night put central Israel in a high state of alert, a reminder of violence still simmering despite a near-total Israeli military closure of the West Bank and curfew on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents.

Israeli media reports said the gunman had intended to disguise himself as an Israeli soldier and travel to the northern Israeli city of Afula, where he would open fire and then blow himself up.

Jihad Kabalan, commander of paramilitary border police in northern Israel, said the gunman first entered an Israeli Arab town looking for transportation before heading back toward the West Bank and firing at the military patrol.

“He went to [the Israeli Arab town of] Umm al Fahm and asked taxi drivers to drive him, but they refused,” Kabalan told Channel Two television. “It was apparently supposed to be a big attack, involving shooting and suicide.”

In the Gaza Strip--where, as in the West Bank, Palestinians are waging a 21-month-old uprising--militants fired five mortar shells at a Jewish settlement, hurting no one, the army said. Israeli forces later scoured the nearby Palestinian town of Deir al Balah.

Earlier Saturday, Israel delayed indefinitely a meeting with Palestinians to ease security and economic restrictions. Palestinian officials had no immediate comment.