Seven Israelis were killed and 29 people were wounded, two of them seriously, when a suicide bomber blew himself up early Wednesday morning on an Egged bus bound from Tel Aviv to Nazareth. The attack occurred near the village of Musmus in the Israeli Arab region of Wadi Ara, not far from the town of Umm el-Fahm.

	Meir Fahima, 40, from Hadera.
	St.-Sgt. Shimon Edri, 20, from Pardess Hanna.
	Sgt. Michael Altfiro, 19, from Pardess Hanna.
	Corporal Aharon Revivo, 19, from Afula.

The terrorist boarded the bus at Umm el-Fahm and detonated his explosive belt shortly after seven in the morning. The blast occurred on the same 823 line that suffered a suicide bombing near the IDF's Camp 80 training base on November 29, in which three passengers were killed and nine people were wounded.

The suicide bomber was identified as Rafat Abu Diak, 24, a member of the Islamic Jihad from Jenin. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened the security cabinet this morning to discuss Israel's response to the attack. Military analysts said that Israel would most likely refrain from strong military actions in order not to harm the efforts of U.S. special envoy Anthony Zinni to achieve cease-fire declarations from Israel and the Palestinians. The trilateral high-level security talks led by Zinni are scheduled to convene this afternoon as planned.

Yossi Ben-Yosef, 58, the driver of the bus was moderately wounded in the bombing. "There were some 30-40 passengers in the bus; most of them got on in Hadera, Raanana and Petach Tikva. When I arrived at Umm el-Fahm, two old men, a young schoolgirl and another young man got on the bus. I didn't suspect anything. The man gave me 12 shekels and said he was traveling to Afula. He was wearing a jacket, and I didn't suspect him. His hands were clearly visible and I didn't see any wires. He went inside the bus, towards the middle, and then the explosion occurred."

Police officer Charley Abutbul, 45, from Afula, was on the bus traveling home after finishing night shift duty in the Irron Valley police department. "I was sitting near the driver. The young man started to make his way into the bus, and he looked suspicious to me. When he passed my seat, I looked back in his direction and shouted, 'Hey!' and then there was an awful explosion." Abutbul sustained moderate injuries in the blast.

The large amount of explosives worn by the bomber set the bus ablaze and rescue workers had difficulty evacuating the wounded passengers. Eyewitnesses said the roadside was covered with the injured and with pools of blood.

"It was a big blast, I barely had time to turn around and the place was packed with emergency vehicles," motorist Noam Barkai told Army Radio.

Eyewitnesses said that Israeli Arabs were among the wounded. Paramedics evacuated the injured to hospitals in Hadera and Afula, which went into well-rehearsed routines for handling the large number of casualties.

Northern Police commander Yaacov Borovsky said police were investigating how the terrorist arrived in Umm el-Fahm, under the assumption that he had accomplices who drove him to the bus stop. Borovsky said the police had no specific warnings of an impending terror attack in the area, but were constantly on alert in the area due to its proximity to Palestinian territories.

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