A flat fire requiring an unscheduled stop saved 40 passengers from a time bomb carried aboard a Beersheba-to-Tel Aviv bus yesterday by an Israeli Arab. The culprit, a member of a Bedouin tribe in the Negev, was seized by his fellow passengers and turned over to police.
According to police accounts, the young Arab boarded the Egged bus at Beersheba carrying a parcel. Apparently he was unaware that it was a non-stop bus and after a time was nervously importuning the driver to let him off. The driver explained that regulations forbade him to make any intermediate stops. But a blow-out in a front tire forced the driver to pull off the road where all of the passengers alighted with their luggage to wait for another bus.
The Arab didn’t wait, however, and as he was leaving, a woman passenger reminded him that he had left his parcel behind. The Arab returned to the bus, took his parcel and hurled it in to a ravine some distance from the road where if exploded. As he attempted to escape he was overpowered by the other passengers.
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