A SUICIDE bomb attack on a bus crammed with worshippers returning from prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem last night has killed at least 20 people, including 5 children.

The militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad each claimed responsibility for the attack, which rescue services said was the worst in Israel’s bloody history. The blast left more than 100 injured.

The attack dealt a grievous blow to the US-backed peace plan for the Middle East.

Israel announced that it had frozen immediately all contact with the Palestinian Authority and ended talks o the handover to Palestinian control of the West Bank towns of Jericho and Qalqiliya.

The explosion ripped through an articulated bus taking families home from Judaism’s holiest shrine to an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city. Dismembered bodies littered the street as rescue workers pulled victims from the shell of the bus. Police said that the bomb had been packed with ball bearings to maximise fatalities. Crews used blowtorches to free injured passengers from a second bus that had been passing at the moment of detonation.

The White House immediately condemned the attack. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, telephoned Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Silvan Shalom, the Foreign Minister, to express his support and to reinforce America’s commitment to the peace plan.

The Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who deplored the attack as a “terrible act”, was meeting with Islamic Jihad leaders in the Gaza Strip at the time of the explosion.

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