The front part of the number 19 bus had been completely blown out

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, January 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least ten people were killed Thursday, January 29, in a car bombing attack on board a bus close to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's official residence in occupied Jerusalem, military radio said.

The blast came a few hours after at least 13 Palestinians were killed in a fresh Israeli incursion into the southern outskirts of Gaza City.

The explosion, occurred shortly before 9:00 am (0700 GMT), left around 40 other people injured, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service told public radio here, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The scene of the blast, close to the junction between Aza Street and Balfour Street in occupied central Jerusalem, was sealed off to reporters but an AFP correspondent said the front part of the number 19 bus had been completely blown out.

David Baker, an official in Sharon's office, said that the attack was proof of the "Palestinian Authority's failure to crack down on what he called hardliners".

"Israel has no chance but to wage an uncompromising war against terror," Baker told reporters at the scene without mentioning the 13 Palestinians killed few hours earlier by Israeli soldiers.

"This is another example of Palestinians targeting Israelis in the hearts of their cities. The PA is doing absolutely nothing to fight terrorism."

Sharon was not in his house at the time of the blast but was staying on his ranch in the southern Negev desert, Israeli media reports said.

Baker stopped short of linking the attack to the Israeli raid on Wednesday, January 28, in which armored vehicles and tanks mounted a bloody raid on Al-Zeitun suburb, opening fire intensely and randomly at houses and destroying a Palestinian security post.

Also a few hours earlier, an Israeli special unit backed by armored vehicles stormed the southern district of the West Bank city of Tulkarm and detained a number of Palestinian youngmen.

A blast on January 14 near Tel Aviv left four Israelis dead as well as the bomber, when a mother of two recruited by Hamas blew herself up at the Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

The resistance group said the operation was in response to the assassination of a military leader of the Islamic Jihad, on December 25.

The latest attack brings the overall death toll since the start of the Palestinian Intifada against Israeli occupation in September 2000 to at least 3,726.