A 35-year-old woman was killed in a car explosion on a highway near Tel Aviv Thursday morning, in what police suspect was a criminal incident amid a deadly wave of underworld violence that has swept Israel in recent years.

According to Magen David Adom, medics received reports of a car engulfed in flames on the Ayalon Highway near the Holon junction, and arrived to find the woman next to her burning car. She was pronounced dead on the scene.

The car exploded while it was in stopped traffic on the major central Israel highway, Hebrew media reported.

According to police, the incident is suspected to be connected to criminal activity, not terrorist. The victim was not known to police, reports said.

Speaking at the scene of the suspected homicide, Tel Aviv District police chief Haim Sargaroff said the driver was killed when a bomb weighing half a kilogram (roughly one pound) detonated in her vehicle.

The force did........

© The Times of Israel