A Palestinian bomber was captured by guards outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on Friday after fleeing a nearby cafe where his explosives belt had set off a metal detector, police said. Uri Bar-Lev, a senior Tel Aviv police officer, told Israel Radio no one was injured in the incident on Tel Aviv's Herbert Samuel Street. Earlier, police said preliminary information showed he had been captured outside the nearby French embassy.

The incident occurred a day after a Palestinian bomber blew himself up at an Israeli bus stop on a main road near Tel Aviv, killing an elderly Israeli woman.

Hamas, a Palestinian Resistance group that has killed scores of Israelis in bombings since the start of a Palestinian uprising for statehood two years ago, claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack.

It said it was avenging the killing of 17 Palestinians in an Israeli raid in the Gaza Strip Monday that drew international condemnation of Israeli militants.

The Tel Aviv promenade was the scene of a Resistance bombing in June 2001 that killed 22 young people waiting to enter a nightclub, and Israeli places of entertainment now station security guards at their entrances.

GAZA PROTEST

In the Gaza Strip, thousands of Resistance men from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction marched Friday in a show of strength against Hamas over the killing of a Palestinian police chief by a Hamas member.

It was the largest turnout of armed Palestinians for a street demonstration in Gaza City since the start of the uprising two years ago and highlighted mounting tensions between supporters of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Hamas.

"We call on the parties that claim to have no connection to the assassination of Colonel Rajeh Abu Lehiya to end their policy of chaos and anarchy," a Fatah statement distributed at the rally said in clear reference to Hamas.

Abu Lehiya, chief of riot police in Gaza, was abducted and killed Sunday by a gunman in an incident that triggered fighting between police and Resistance men in which six people, including two who died in hospital Friday, were killed.

Hamas leaders, while acknowledging the gunman's membership in the Islamic movement, said it was not involved in the killing.

Imad Akel said he killed the police chief to avenge the death of his brother, one of three Palestinians killed by riot police a year ago during protests in support of Osama bin Laden.

Meetings held between representatives of Hamas, Fatah and Arafat's Palestinian Authority have failed to end the stand-off because Hamas refused to ask Akel to hand himself in to the police, a Palestinian security official said.

In Nablus, an Israeli occupation army patrol shot and killed a 55-year-old Palestinian woman and wounded her husband, Palestinian witnesses said.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Palestinian bomber is led into custody (C) outside an Israeli police station after failing in an attempt to attack a crowded cafe on Tel Aviv's busy beachfront October, 11, 2002. (Guy Alon/Reuter