Jerusalem: At least 12 people were killed and around 30 others injured, some of them critically, when a suicide bomber on March 5 ripped apart a bus, carrying mostly students, in the Israeli coastal city of Haifa.

The blast, the first bomb attack in Israel since January when 23 people were killed in a double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, took place while the bus was on a main street in the Carmeliya neighbourhood, officials were quoted as saying by media reports.

Most of the victims were students, as the bus travelled between a residential area on the Carmel heights and Haifa university, public television said.

Northern police chief Yaacob Borowsky said the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, Israeli public radio reported.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad – the hardline Palestinian groups – said the attack was a revenge for recent Israeli raids in Gaza that killed a number of civilians, but stopped short of claiming the responsibility for the suicide bombing.

"The explosion occurred inside the bus, and was very powerful, there's almost nothing left of the bus," a fire brigade official told public television.

The blast comes days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formed a new coalition government, which includes ultra-nationalist parties that are opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israeli television channels showed bloodied images and the charred wreck of the ill- fated bus number 37. Police said bodies and wreckage were strewn across the area.

Eyewitnesses described the scenes as horrific and "very difficult to look at".

"The centre of the bus lifted up into the air, the roof was torn off. It looked like a blast inside the bus, and within seconds people began taking the wounded out of the bus," an eyewitness was quoted as saying.

An official in Prime Minister's Office said, "The attack in Haifa is yet another Palestinian bloodletting of innocent Israeli civilians… Israel will not tolerate this terror, and will continue to take the necessary steps to eradicate it."

PTI