A bomb exploded on Sunday on a bus heading from Tel Aviv to the nearby city of Bat Yam, Israeli police confirmed to Xinhua.

A police sapper was lightly wounded after he tried to neutralize the device. The police said the device went off before the sapper could neutralize it. No other casualties were reported.

Israel's Ynet news website cited a police source as saying that "the motive for the explosion was nationalistic attack."

A spokesperson for the Dan bus company, Eitan Fiksman, said that one of the passengers spotted a suspicious package and alerted the driver.

"The passenger opened the backpack and the driver saw wires. The driver stopped, called the police and told the passengers to get off," Fiksman said.