Israel thwarts bombing; Palestinian suspect held

JERUSALEM, Feb 20 (Reuters) Israeli police arrested a suspected Palestinian bomber and several accomplices hiding in an apartment near Tel Aviv today, close to where they had planned to stage an attack hours later, a spokesman said.

Israeli television reports said a major attack had been thwarted and that the key suspect was from the occupied West Bank. Police had found the explosive he had intended to use, hidden in another town outside Tel Aviv, the reports said.

''Police have arrested a number of individuals, including the terrorist who had intended to carry out a bomb attack in Tel Aviv,'' Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for national police, said.

Rosenfeld said the would-be bomber, a Palestinian, and several other suspects had been found in an apartment in Bat Yam, a suburb south of Tel Aviv, and had apparently intended to carry out an attack later today.

He declined to give further details.

The arrests were reported after a dragnet search of the greater Tel Aviv area, that tied up traffic for hours.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the would-be bomber from any Palestinian militant group.

A truce with militant groups since late November had largely halted Israeli-Palestinian violence until a January 29 suicide bombing in the southern port city of Eilat, that killed three people.

The last bombing in Tel Aviv, Israel's business capital, was last April, in a suicide attack in which 11 people were killed.

Reuters PDS VP0152