Blast hits Tel Aviv bus queue

At least one person was killed and 21 others wounded when an explosion ripped through a Tel Aviv bus stop early today, police said.

Tel Aviv police chief Yossi Sedbon said the bombing had apparently been carried out by Palestinian militants, although he said it had not been a suicide bombing.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Palestinian militant group loosely linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the attack, Israel Radio reported.

The blast came two days after the UN world court ruled that Israel's West Bank separation barrier - meant to block Palestinian militants from entering the country - is illegal. Palestinian militants have not successfully carried out an attack inside Israel in more than three months.

Mr Sedbon said the explosives had been planted on the side of the road and went off as a bus stood nearby. The blast blew out the windows of the bus, he said.

"I heard the explosion and I saw the hysteria," Shlomi Ben-Abu, a witness, told Army Radio. "A woman soldier flew across my view. That's what I saw. It was not on a bus. It was at a bus stop."