Jerusalem: Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank caught a Palestinian wearing an explosive belt on Friday, police and military said, preventing what could have been the first suicide attack in years.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said border police near the Palestinian city of Nablus had been suspicious about the man who was wearing a coat on an exceptionally hot Spring day.
"The forces stopped him and asked the suspect to remove his clothes. He was wearing a bomb-belt," Rosenfeld said.
The Israeli military said the forces had "thwarted a suicide bomb attack". The man, believed to be in his 20s, was in a particularly sensitive area in the West Bank, which has a number of Jewish settlements and large security presence.
Israel saw a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings a decade ago during the height of a Palestinian uprising. The last suicide attacks took place in 2008.
