THE MIDDLE EAST: "How many more times can this happen?" cried a young woman named Elisheva, some 15 minutes after another suicide-bomber killed six people and wounded 84 in yet another attack in Jerusalem.
We are standing amidst crushed vegetables and broken glass on Jaffa Street, about 40 feet from the place where the bomb exploded beside a bus.
Elisheva's sleeves are covered in blood, although she herself was not hurt.
"I tried to help the people," she said. "I was holding a girl in my arm, she said she had just turned 17 today. This is horrible." She added that she had just moved to a flat a block away.
The latest suicide-bomber blew herself up at a bus stop in Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem's crowded outdoor market just after 4 p.m.
Israel Radio identified the bomber as Nidal Daraghmeh, a woman from the Jenin refugee camp. Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack came while the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, was trying to arrange an end to Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Mr Powell, who earlier met the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, to urge a withdrawal of Israeli troops from West Bank towns, viewed the scene of the attack from a helicopter, Israeli officials said.
The street - which was packed with shoppers when the blast went off just before the start of the Sabbath - was strewn with glass shards, twisted metal, blood and body parts. A nearby hospital's emergency room admitted 34 wounded people. One man in the emergency room had lost his hearing. Another was covered in blood and was receiving oxygen. Several others lay on trolleys looking dazed.
President Bush condemned the Jerusalem blast, said spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer.
"There are people in the region who want to disrupt Secretary Powell's mission. The President will not be deterred from seeking peace," Mr Fleischer said. Mr Powell spoke to Mr Sharon to express his regrets.
Jerusalem's mayor, Mr Ehud Olmert, was in the market and left moments before the blast. "It shocks me that there is an international effort, campaign, to prevent Israel from fighting terror and to make it bend to terror," he said.
Yesterday's blast was the fifth suicide attack since Israel launched its West Bank operation.
Israel has rejected calls for any international force, a long-time Palestinian demand, but has said it would accept a small group of American monitors.
Michael Jansen reports from Ramallah: The purpose of yesterday's visit of the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Ahmad Maher, to the besieged Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, is said to have involved co-ordinating Egyptian-Palestinian positions ahead of today's meeting between Mr Arafat and Mr Powell.
However, Dr Ghassan Khatib, a leading Palestinian analyst, told The Irish Times by telephone, "I assume it is about pressuring Arafat to accept what Powell offers. But no one here has any idea of what Powell has in mind." Since Dr Khatib is confined to his home on the opposite side of Ramallah to where I am staying, it is impossible to meet.
The entry of the Egyptian minister to the presidential compound in the city makes absolutely no impression on the frozen existence of the 243,000 people living under curfew. There is no lifting or easing of the curfew as there was last Friday when US ceasefire envoy, Mr Anthony Zinni, paid a call on Mr Arafat. The streets of Ramallah, the West Bank administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, are empty.
I accompany Mr Adam Shapiro, a peace activist, to the the headquarters of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC). He is wearing a white vest, bearing the insignia of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and waves a white flag. As we set off walking from the Ramallah Hospital towards Manara Square, the town centre, there are repeated flat, metallic explosions.
"The Israelis are blowing the doors off buildings they want to search", Mr Shapiro stated.
"There are no armed Palestinians here any longer." Tanks are parked on a side street, armoured personnel carriers roar past. We move through the battered streets, scored by tank treads, garbage piling up against buildings. We could be the last people on earth.