On the day Israel and the PLO were supposed to reach agreement on expanded Palestinian autonomy, Israel instead buried five victims of a bus bombing that shook support for the fragile peace process.
But even before Tuesday's funerals, Israel reaffirmed that talks with the Palestinians would resume, perhaps this week and most likely outside Israel.Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Israeli and Palestinian officials would meet Tuesday night to decide where and when to resume the talks, which were suspended after the Monday morning bombing.
At the Kiryat Shaul cemetery, about 150 mourners buried 80-year-old Moshe Shkedi. He was one of six people - apparently including the suicide bomber - killed when an estimated 30 pounds of explosives went off as the bus was passing a complex of office towers that houses Israel's bustling diamond exchange.
The blast reduced the elegant district to bedlam. Anti-government protests erupted and Orthodox Jewish burial crews scoured the bus and sidewalk for scraps of human flesh.
Israel radio said 22 people remained hospitalized, including one in critical condition and three with serious injuries.
Police said they believed the bomber belonged to a Muslim extremist group, and callers to media organizations claimed it was carried out by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Israel responded by sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip and halting negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.