Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said security forces at Tel Aviv's main bus station foiled an attempted Palestinian bombing that could have caused scores of casualties.
In another incident yesterday, Israeli soldiers shot and wounded a five-year-old Palestinian boy traveling in a car that approached their West Bank roadblock at night at high speed, an Israeli military source said.
Palestinian security sources said the child's grandfather also was wounded.
At the United Nations, the world body presented a report on how it mishandled information and videotapes centering on the abduction last October of three Israeli soldiers by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas on the Israel-Lebanon border.
In findings that were not relayed at the time to UN headquarters or to Israel, UN peacekeepers said the soldiers "may have been badly injured and may succumb to their injuries." There has been no word from the three since the abduction.
Speaking on Israeli television, Mr Ben-Eliezer cited the Tel Aviv bomb incident to explain why Israel intends to stick to an internationally criticized policy of killing Palestinian militants it believes are plotting to attack its citizens.
Police said a security guard spotted a Palestinian woman placing a package on the pavement next to the bus station and gave chase. An 8.8 lb. bomb was found packed into a laundry detergent box. She was arrested and the bomb defused.
Asked if Israel was following the right policy by stepping up its attacks on Palestinians, Mr Ben-Eliezer said: "What do you expect us to do? What's left to talk about?"
"Only today, there was an attempted bombing at the Tel Aviv bus station. If we hadn't have foiled it, dozens would have been killed."