NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers arrested a Palestinian teenager with a bomb belt tied around his waist at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday, the army said.

Troops manning the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus became suspicious of a Palestinian teenager passing through on Sunday evening, an army spokeswoman said.

"The teenager was asked to lift up his shirt and it revealed a bomb belt containing two pipe bombs tied around his waist," she said.

The youth apparently intended to detonate the bombs at the checkpoint by igniting a crude detonator with a cigarette lighter, the spokeswoman said.

Palestinian residents identified the youth as 15-year-old Ahmed al-Nadi from the Askar refugee camp. He was taken for questioning and his bomb was defused by sappers.

The army spokeswoman said it was the 14th time in the past two months that a Palestinian teenager had attempted to detonate a bomb or smuggle arms and explosives through a military checkpoint despite a de facto truce declared in February.