A Palestinian was shot dead on the outskirts of Bnei Brak Monday morning, after he rammed his stolen car into a police officer and a female soldier, injuring them at a busy intersection. Earlier, the same man drove through a roadblock near Kalkilya, moderately injuring a soldier there.

Reports that the Palestinian had opened fire on passersby turned out to be incorrect. The man was unarmed, and police are investigating whether he either planned a much larger hit and run attack or had just completely lost control of the car.

The incident began when the man drove through the roadblock at an IDF checkpoint early Monday near the Fruit Intersection, south of Kalkilya, striking a soldier. Soldiers at the roadblock opened fire, but it was not clear if the vehicle was hit. A massive police manhunt was launched to chase after the runaway car.

In Petach Tikva, the Palestinian rammed into a Volvo sedan stopped at an intersection. When Naphtali Levy, 79, got out to inspect the damage, the Palestinian dragged him away, took over the car and sped off in the direction of Ramat Gan. Yaffa Levy, 71, was still in the front seat of the car at the time. When she began screaming, the terrorist stopped and let her out. He then sped on to Bnei Brak.

"The terrorist went up onto the curb … turned around and stopped," Avi Shalom, an employee at a gas station at Bnei Brak's Machon Mor intersection told ynet. "I was sure he was going to blow himself up right in front of my eyes. Then I saw someone run up with a gun and shoot him."

Police dismissed media reports connecting the Palestinian driver with another incident Monday morning, in which a suspicious woman was questioned on a city bus near Tel Aviv's Reading power station. Passengers on the bus alerted the driver to the woman, and he then stopped the bus and called police. Nothing unusual was found in the woman's possessions and she was released.

First female suicide bomber leads to new security measures
Police forces beefed up their presence in the center of Jerusalem on Monday, following Sunday's bombing on Jaffa Road, in which one Israeli was killed and over 150 were wounded. Police were stationed every 100 meters along the mostly deserted street and on the nearby Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian mall, with the aim of giving residents and storeowners some sense of additional security.

The Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station identified Sunday's bomber as Shinaz Amuri, 20, a student at Nablus's A-Najah University, considered by security services as a "hothouse for suicide bombers." At least six of some 120 suicide bombers who have carried out attacks against Israeli targets have been students at the university, which is also considered a Hamas stronghold, Ha'aretz reported.

The identity of the woman could not be confirmed. Palestinian sources said that census reports indicated that a woman by the same name lived in Nablus, but she was 48 years old, Maariv reported.

No terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack and no typical suicide bomber videotape has been as yet released. The fact that this was apparently the first incident in which a suicide bombing was carried out by a woman, may be a problem for the devoutly religious terror groups, reported Channel Two television's Arab affairs commentator Ehud Ya'ari. He recalled a number of female bombers during one stage of the Lebanese civil war in the early 1980s, but Islamic pressure put an end to this phenomenon.

Palestinian sources said that the Hamas had in recent months received several requests from women who had volunteered to serve as suicide assailants, Ha'aretz reported. Other sources suggested that the woman might have been connected to the mostly secular Tanzim.

Police are reportedly investigating the possibility that the Palestinian woman had not actually planned to commit suicide in the bombing. Security sources suggest that she may have planned to leave a bag containing explosives on the street, but due to a technical mishap, the bomb exploded prematurely. In August, a Palestinian woman was apprehended when she attempted to enter the Tel Aviv central bus station with a bag containing explosives hidden in laundry detergent.

This theory was supported by the eyewitness account of a saleswoman at the Jaffa Road shoe store, outside which Sunday's bombing occurred. "An Arab women entered the store holding a large bag," she said. "We immediately had suspicions about her, thinking that she might be a terrorist. I went up to her and asked whether I could help her. She ... signaled that she didn't need help; then she turned, and left the store. Right then I heard a blast. Everything went dark, the windows shattered..."

"It is no longer possible to point at a profile of a typical suicide bomber," a senior security source told Maariv. "In the past, we talked about single Palestinians, religious and uneducated. Today we find ourselves dealing also with married, older men and now, also women."

Police and security forces have reportedly altered plans for dealing with potential suicide bombers, and are on the lookout for additional female bombers. Police will be no longer be on alert only for suspicious men, and IDF soldiers manning checkpoints have received instructions to carefully check suspicious Palestinian women.

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