Israeli Police Defuse Bomb in Jerusalem

Published August 28th, 2000 - 03:00 GMT

Israeli police said they defused a pipe bomb hidden in a backpack, which was left near a busy Jerusalem intersection, reported Haaretz newspaper.

The discovery of the bomb came less than 24 hours after three Israeli soldiers were killed in a late night gunfight with Palestinian Hamas members in a West Bank village.

So far, there were no claims of responsibility for the bomb but Hamas and Islamic Jihad have in the past tried to thwart peacemaking with Israel by carrying out a series of bomb attacks that have killed scores of people, reported Reuters.

"We prevented a very big catastrophe," Jerusalem police chief Yair Yitzhaki told Reuters.

He said a police bomb squad examined the bag after blowing it up in a controlled explosion and found that it contained a pipe-bomb weighing about one and a half kilograms, added Reuters - (Several Sources)