US President Mr George W. Bush today made his strongest appeal yet for calm in the Middle East, condemning a Palestinian attack that killed eight people in Israel and urging an end to the tragic cycle of violence.
Mr Bush's call for peace came just before three top political colleagues of Israeli Prime Minister-elect Mr Ariel Sharon had separate meetings in Washington with Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell and Vice President Mr Dick Cheney.
Mr Bush said he called Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Mr Ehud Barak to express his condolences to the families of those killed in an attack near Tel Aviv earlier in the day, when a Palestinian bus driver slammed into a crowd waiting at a bus stop, killing eight people and wounding at least 17 others.
Violence has gradually worsened in the period since Mr Sharon was elected by a landslide last week. Almost 400 people have been killed in a nearly five-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence.
One of Mr Sharon's emissaries, former defense minister Mr Moshe Arens, said after meeting Mr Powell that the Israelis and Mr Powell had found common ground on how to approach the decades-old conflict in the Middle East. He said the Bush administration agreed with Mr Sharon that ending violence was a prerequisite for successful negotiations.
Israeli officials said the bus attack, the bloodiest in Israel in almost four years, could be a response to an Israeli helicopter strike that killed a member of Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat's security unit in Gaza yesterday.
Reuters