Bomb tied to telephone pole explodes at crowded bus stop in Jerusalem

An bomb tied to a telephone pole exploded Wednesday at a crowded bus stop outside the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, just opposite the central bus station. At least 25 people were wounded in the incident, four of them seriously.

All of the casualties have been evacuated to the Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem. The Magen David Adom emergency services said that there were no fatalities. The blast could be heard throughout Jerusalem and blew out the windows of two crowded buses, No. 74 and No. 14, Ha'aretz reports.

The explosion did not appear to be large enough to destroy nearby buses though it did blow out windows. Television images showed people carried away in stretchers.

"I heard the explosion in the bus stop," Meir Hagid, a bus driver who was driving through the station when the blast occurred, told The Associated Press. He said nobody in his bus was hurt.

The explosion came amid rising tensions between Hamas and Israel, and appeared to be the first attack to strike inside Israel in some time, New York Times says.