TEL AVIV, Feb 17: Israeli police foiled an attempted suicide bombing on Sunday, shooting dead a Palestinian gunman in an exchange of fire as his accomplice fled in a car which later exploded, killing him and injuring three policemen.

The police action thwarted what would have been the second suicide bombing in less than 24 hours against Israelis, after a Palestinian attacker blew himself up at a shopping centre in a West Bank settlement late on Saturday, killing two teenagers.

That attack in the Karnei Shomron settlement brought a retaliatory Israeli air strike in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday and signs of public frustration in Israel with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

On Sunday, police commander Yaacov Borovsky said the two Palestinians had been on their way to carry out a shooting and suicide bombing at an army base near the northern Israeli city of Hadera.

Borovsky said traffic police had stopped the car of the two Palestinians on suspicion it had been stolen. A passenger got out and opened fire at police outside the base. Police returned fire and killed the man, who was found to have a bomb strapped to his body.

During the exchange, the car driver sped off and police gave chase. Within minutes, the vehicle exploded.

“The terrorist blew himself up as a result of us shooting at him,” traffic policeman Yehezkel Halabiya told Israel Radio.

“My two partners in the car were wounded, I was lightly burned in the face. It was a very big explosion.”

The attack in Karnei Shomron marked the first time a suicide bomber had caused such carnage in one of the heavily guarded settlements in the West Bank during the Palestinian revolt.

A 20-year-old Palestinian, Sadek Abdel-Hafez, said in a videotaped statement that he belonged to a military wing of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was attacking Karnei Shomron to retaliate for Israeli killings.

BUFFER ZONE: The Israeli army is building a buffer zone on Palestinian land — the length of the Gaza Strip — after Islamic radicals fired rockets on Israel from the area, a senior Palestinian security official charged on Sunday.