Tel Aviv bus bomb injures 10 as Israel-Gaza truce talks continue (VIDEO)

Enlarge

Israeli police seal off the area surrounding the bus which was hit by a bomb near the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on November 21, 2012. At least 10 people were injured in an explosion on a bus, Israel's emergency services said, in what an official said was "a terrorist attack." (JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP/Getty Images)

A bomb blast on a Tel Aviv bus has wounded at least 10 people and complicated efforts to negotiate a truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

The bus exploded at around noon Wednesday near military headquarters in central Tel Aviv, the Israeli commercial capital. 

Israeli officials called it a terrorist attack, and said police have set up roadblocks in the area to find the person who planted the explosive device, Reuters reported.

More from GlobalPost: Gaza: The roots of conflict

Israeli radio is reporting that the explosives were thrown onto the vehicle by someone who then escaped, the Wall Street Journal said.

The Jerusalem Post said that as many as 21 people were taken to hospital, though none of them with life-threatening injuries.

In Gaza, the bus bombing was praised from mosque loudspeakers, according to the Associated Press.

Hamas has not claimed responsibility, though a spokesman told Reuters that the group "blessed" the attack and saw it as a "a natural response to the Israeli massacres."

The US, France and Russia have joined Israel in calling the explosion a terrorist attack, according to Agence France-Presse. The White House called it "outrageous."

"The United States will stand with our Israeli allies, and provide whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack," an official statement said. "The United States reaffirms our unshakeable commitment to Israel's security."

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is in the region, working to help broker a deal to end the violence after eight days of Israeli air strikes and Hamas rocket attacks.

Clinton arrived in Cairo hours after the bus bombing, where she is due to meet with Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi and work on a possible truce.

More than 130 Palestinians and five Israelis have died in the conflict so far, the BBC said.

According to United Nations relief workers, 10,000 people have been displaced in Gaza since the hostilities began.

GlobalPost's correspondent based in Jerusalem, Noga Tarnopolsky, tweeted a photo of the bus in Tel Aviv:

The blown-up bus twitter.com/NTarnopolsky/s…

— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) November 21, 2012

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/121121/tel-aviv-bus-bomb-injures-10-israel-gaza-truce-talks