An Arab man with an ax killed a female Israeli soldier in Afula, 60 miles north of Jerusalem today, raising fears of reprisals in the northern city where a suicide bomber killed eight Israelis in April.

Passersby captured the attacker, identified as Wahib Abu Rub, 24, an unemployed Arab from Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank whose brother is a jailed member of the militant Islamic Hamas faction.