JERUSALEM Bus bombing kills 10

A meeting of officials was canceled after the blast.
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A suicide bomber blew up a bus near the prime minister's residence today, killing 10 bystanders and wounding at least 50 in the deadliest attack in four months.
The militant Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as a 24-year-old Palestinian policeman from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
The bombing dealt a further setback to stalled peace efforts and coincided with a German-brokered prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.
Released as planned
Israel, however, went ahead and released 400 Palestinian prisoners as planned today as part of a swap with Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.
The bombing occurred just before 9 a.m. in the Rehavia district of downtown Jerusalem, some 15 yards from Sharon's official residence. Sharon was not home at the time.
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. Police said the explosion went off in the middle or back of the crowded bus and was so powerful that body parts flew into nearby houses.
A bus passenger, Svetlana Minchiker, said she was talking on her cell phone when she felt the blast. "I thought my telephone had exploded," she said, holding up her blood-stained hands. "As my feelings slowly returned to me, I managed to ... crawl through the window."
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.
The explosion also sent a chunk of the bus roof onto the roof of a nearby two-story building. Religious rescue workers were gathering body parts in accordance with Jewish law.
Police investigators with sniffer dogs searched the bus. Paramedics were taking away the wounded on stretchers. Others were treated at the scene. People, dazed and crying, wandered around the area.
Last attack
The last attack in Israel was a suicide bombing at a bus stop outside of Tel Aviv on Dec. 25 that killed four people. 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.
The blast came at a time of renewed efforts to bring about a cease-fire. Earlier this week, senior Egyptian officials had tried to win a pledge from Palestinian militants to halt attacks on Israelis.
Two senior State Department officials, David Satterfield and John Wolf, were meeting with Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, at the time of the blast, Israel Radio said.
The U.S.-led "road map" peace plan has been stalled almost since its inception in June.
Meeting cancelled
After the blast, Sharon and his foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, announced that they had canceled a planned meeting that was to include the Americans, Palestinians and international donors that help fund the Palestinian Authority budget. The meeting was meant to help restart peace talks.
Palestinian Authority officials condemned the bombing, while also denouncing the deaths of nine Palestinians on Wednesday during fighting with Israeli troops in Gaza.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia appealed "to all parties to stop this bloody series of violence," declare a cease-fire and resume the road map.
Abdel Aziz Rantissi, a Hamas leader in Gaza, stopped short of claiming responsibility on behalf of his group, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings.
"It's not important who carried out this operation. The only thing which is very important is that we are resisting occupiers who came ... to occupy our land and to kill our people," he said.
Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said the attack underscores the need for the security barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.