11 injured as suicide bomber blows himself up

A suicide bomber blew himself today at a busy intersection next to the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, wounding 11 other people, police and rescue workers said.

The attack came at 7.30am on a working day in Israel when the intersection was full of cars and bus stops were packed with people. Ambulances raced to the scene and police closed off the area.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. Recent suicide bomb strikes have been carried out by two radical Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Rescue worker Shimon Biton told Israel Radio from the scene that the casualties were lightly to moderately wounded.

The suicide bomber was the only fatality. Dr Zvi Ben-Ishai, deputy director of Haifa’s Rambam hospital, said 11 wounded had been brought in and ‘‘most of them were very slightly wounded by shrapnel’’.

The bomber set off his explosives at a bus stop meant for Israeli soldiers returning to their bases after weekend leave.

Minutes after the blast, flames leaped from the body of the bomber where it lay in the street just in front of the bus stop, which was only slightly damaged.

Israeli firefighters, crouching behind a traffic barrier in the middle of the road, fearing additional blasts, aimed a fire hose at the burning body.

Last Sunday, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Haifa bus, killing himself and 15 other people, a day after two suicide bombers hit downtown Jerusalem, killing 10 people.

On Saturday, another victim of the Jerusalem blast, a 17-year-old, died of his wounds. Hamas claimed responsibility for both attacks.

The two attacks a week ago led Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cut short his visit to the United States.

Israeli air force planes and helicopters hit Palestinian police and security structures in the West Bank and Gaza, and Israel’s Cabinet declared Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority an ‘‘entity that supports terrorism’’.