Palestinian bomb kills soldier and injures 20

A FEMALE soldier was killed and 20 people wounded when a bomb exploded in Tel Aviv yesterday, in the first such attack by militants inside Israel for nearly four months.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the attack was carried out "under the patronage" of a decision by the World Court which ruled Friday that his government's West Bank separation barrier was illegal. Mr Sharon vowed that construction work would continue on the wall despite the ruling.

Emergency services rushed to the scene of the blast, which struck near a long-distance bus stop in Israel's commercial capital at around 7am local time (4am Irish time), and sped the badly injured to hospital.