Palestinian policeman's suicide bus attack kills 10
It was the deadliest suicide attack in four months but did not halt a long-planned prisoner exchange between Israel and Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.
The Jerusalem blast sent body parts flying into nearby houses. Shaken survivors crawled out of broken bus windows. Witnesses said there was an overpowering smell of blood and smoke.
Mr Sharon was not home at the time of the attack, claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group close to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
The bomber, identified as Ali Jaara, 24, a Palestinian policeman from the Aida refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem, left a note saying he wanted to avenge the eight Palestinians killed in fighting with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip the day before.
The attack marked another setback for stalled peace efforts. It came at a time when senior US State Department officials were in the region to try to revive the road map plan. Washington has criticised the Palestinian Authority for not doing enough to stop militants, and the bomber's ties to the security forces was particularly embarrassing.
The attack coincided with the German-brokered prisoner swap in Germany and on the Israeli-Lebanese border. It was not clear whether the Al Aqsa militia had timed the bombing to go off during the exchange.
Jaara, who lived in the West Bank with his parents and nine siblings, was described by relatives as quiet and a devout Muslim who showed little interest in politics.
His father, Munir, said Jaara was the only breadwinner in the house, and had been hoping to start a family.
"I was expecting to marry him, not to bury him," the father said.
Distraught relatives filled the house, as Jaara's mother sat on a mattress on the floor, crying uncontrollably. She carried a picture of her son in a police uniform carrying his police-issued Kalashnikov rifle. Many family members said they opposed militant attacks against Israelis. "These operations are not only not good for us, but really bad for us. They only hurt us," said his 26-year-old sister, Ola.
Police said the bomber had been carrying about 15lbs of explosives in a bag and detonated them on the bus just 15 yards from Mr Sharon's official residence. Bus passenger Svetlana Minchiker, in her 30s, said she was talking on her mobile phone as the blast went off.
"At first I did not see anything except my hands," she said, holding up one hand still stained red. A trickle of dried blood marked her left cheek. "As my feelings slowly returned, I managed to crawl through the window."
The green bus was charred, with wires dangling everywhere. One side of the bus had been blown out and the back half of the roof was blown off. Eli Beer, a paramedic, said victims had been scattered over a wide area.
"There were a lot of heavy injuries, a lot of the people who were injured were in bad condition, a lot of people had missing limbs," he said.
Bret Stephens, Jerusalem Post editor in chief, was near the scene at the time of the blast. "There was glass everywhere, human remains everywhere, shoes, feet, pieces of guts," he said.
It was the deadliest attack since a female suicide bomber killed 21 people at a seaside restaurant in Haifa in October. The last bombing inside Israel was a suicide attack at a bus stop outside Tel Aviv that killed four people on Christmas Eve. Israeli officials said the weeks of calm preceding the bombing were a result of Israeli security measures, not a reduction in violence on the Palestinian side.
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