HAIFA, March 5: At least 15 people were killed and more than 30 wounded on

Wednesday as a suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in the northern Israeli town of Haifa, the first bombing in the Jewish state in two months.

Most of the victims were thought to be students as the bus was ripped to pieces while travelling between a residential area on the city’s Carmel heights and Haifa university.

Ten of the wounded were in serious condition.

The suicide bomber was wearing a belt packed with several dozen kilos of explosives and nails to cause maximum casualties.

Two hardline Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said the blast was revenge for a string of bloody raids by the Israeli army into the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.

But the Palestinian leadership condemned the attack, saying it would divert international sympathy away from the far higher Palestinian civilian death toll.—AFP