JERUSALEM - A grenade explosion killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three others on Sunday near a military outpost in the Golan Heights, the army said in a statement.

The incident occurred at Mount Hermon near the demarcation line with Syria. Details on how the Israeli grenade went off were being investigated.

The two soldiers killed were identified as Staff Sergeant Hussam Tafesh, a 24-year-old Druze, and Sergeant Shlomo Rindenow, 20 and originally from the United States. Israeli media reported that one of the soldiers exited an army vehicle holding the grenade and approached another soldier standing outside the outpost when it exploded. Israel seized 1,200 square km of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian carrying pipe bombs in his bag was arrested and the explosives disarmed near a light rail tram station in downtown Jerusalem on Sunday, police said.

The suspect, a resident of Beit Ula near Hebron in the occupied West Bank in his early 20s, was standing behind a station carrying a bag when he raised the suspicion of a tram guard, police said. The guard examined the bag’s content, and saw what appeared to be bombs.

He called police, who closed off the area and disarmed “three pipe bombs wired together,” a police statement read. Mobile phones and knives were also in the backpack. The suspect was arrested.