30-May-14: Has a Palestinian Arab human bomb just been intercepted en route to an attack?

Tapuah Junction, April 30, 2013, shortly after Eviatar Borowski
was murdered there

The Jewish Press website is reporting in the past half hour on dramatic events at Tapuah Junction in Samaria.

11:00 AM An Arab man wearing a coat in today’s scorching 95 degree Fahrenheit weather was spotted approaching the Tapuach junction in the Shomron. A Border Police unit on the site spotted and stopped the man from a distance, where he was told to lie down on the road and remove his outer clothing. The army suspects he is wearing a suicide belt under his clothing. The army sent demolitions experts to the site, and has moved an armored bus between the suspect and everyone else in the area.
11:05 AM The army blew up the man’s clothing, and from the amount of smoke that came out, witnesses on site say it appears it was a bomb. The Tapuach Junction has been the site of a number of terror attacks.

Click here for our posts on previous attacks at Tapuah, which attracts would-be killers like honey attracts bees. Eviatar Borowski, a young father and resident of the nearby community of Yitzhar, was stabbed to death there a year ago.

UPDATE Friday 11:30 am: Jewishpress.com has now posted an update and a cell-phone video of the take-down by the IDF at Tapuah. They quote an IDF officer on the spot, Shlomi Yosef, saying that seizing the suicide belt from the man "prevented a major attack".

UPDATE Friday 12 noon: Over at the Times of Israel, Lazar Berman writes: “It is still unclear what the suspect’s intentions were,” said battalion commander Shlomi Yosef, according to Walla news. “But it is certain that the awareness and professionalism of the forces led to the arrest of the suspect and the seizure of the explosives, which appear to have prevented a serious disaster.” IDF sources said their initial estimate is that the man was on his way to an attack, possibly against soldiers stationed nearby. He was taken in for interrogation."