A van driven by a Palestinian that was loaded with explosives was stopped in northern Israel, Israeli state radio reported.
A police roadblock stopped two suspect vehicles east of the Israeli town of Binyamina 60 kilometres north of Tel Aviv, near the border with the West Bank, the report said.
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Smoke rises into the air after an Israeli tank rolled over an explosive device in central Gaza near the Maghazi refugee camp Photograph: Reuters
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The occupants of the vehicles fled in a car leaving behind a van containing a 600-kilogramme explosive charge tied to the fuel tank, which was to be activated by a mobile phone, it was reported. Police blew up the device.
"A big disaster has been avoided. The manhunt is still underway to find them [the occupants]," police commander Mr Yaacov Brorowsky said.
Elsewhere, two Israeli soldiers were wounded by Palestinian gunfire near the Jewish settlement of Nitzanit in the Gaza Strip, where the army staged two incursions.
Israeli tanks and jeeps moved into two autonomous Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip in the southern city of Rafah and the central town of Deir al-Balah.
The Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom was also hit by two mortar shells overnight, Israeli military sources said.
AFP