JERUSALEM (AP) — Hundreds of Israelis lined up outside Israel's parliament building on Sunday to pay their last respects to Ariel Sharon, the hard-charging former prime minister and general who died over the weekend. 
 
 Workers prepare the gravesite for late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who will be buried next to his wife, outside his ranch in Havat Shikmim, southern Israel, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014. A state memorial... (Associated Press) 
 
 A military vehicle with the coffin of the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon heads to Jerusalem from a military base near Rishon Letzion in central Israel, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014. The body of Ariel... (Associated Press) 
 
 Members of the Knesset guard carry the coffin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Knesset plaza, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014. Sharon, the hard-charging Israeli general and prime... (Associated Press) 
 
 Members of the Knesset guard carry the coffin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Knesset plaza, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014. Sharon, the hard-charging Israeli general and prime... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sunday May 16, 2004 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pauses during a news conference in his Jerusalem office regarding education reform. Sharon, the hard-charging Israeli... (Associated Press) 
 
 Sharon's coffin was displayed in a plaza in front of the Knesset, where a stream of visitors passed by to snap photos and say farewell. A funeral service to be attended by dignitaries from around the world, including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is scheduled for Monday. 
 
 The 85-year-old Sharon, one of Israel's most iconic and controversial figures, died Saturday, eight years after suffering a stroke that left him in a coma. 
 
 "My heart is broken. Israel lost the King of David. There is no other word to describe this man, they don't make people like this anymore," said Uri Rottman, a mourner who said he once served in the military with Sharon. 
 
 "I feel committed to share the very last moment before they're going to bury him," said Eliav Aviram, another former army comrade. 
 
 Sharon was a farmer-turned-soldier, a soldier-turned-politician, a politician-turned-statesman — a leader known for his exploits on the battlefield, masterminding Israel's invasion of Lebanon, building Jewish settlements on war-won land and then, late in life, destroying some that he deemed no longer useful. To his supporters, he was a war hero. To his critics, he was a war criminal. 
 
 Israeli authorities closed off streets around the parliament in anticipation of huge crowds Sunday. Visitors were asked to park at lots in and around the city and were brought to the site by special buses. 
 
 President Shimon Peres and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who succeeded Sharon after the 2006 stroke, was among the visitors. Olmert crossed past a roped-off area to stand silently next to the flag-draped coffin. 
 
 A state memorial is planned Monday at the parliament building. In addition to Biden, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and others were expected. 
 
 Afterward Sharon's body will be taken by military convey for burial at his ranch in southern Israel. 
 
 News of Sharon dominated Israeli newspapers and broadcast reports, and Israel's three main TV stations all broadcast live from the memorial. Radio stations were filled with interviews with former officials and military men who shared stories of Sharon's exploits. 
 
 Sharon's career stretched across much of Israel's 65-year existence, and his life was closely intertwined with the country's history. 
 
 Throughout his life, he was at the center of the most contentious episodes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, starting as a young soldier fighting in the 1948 war over Israel's creation. 
 
 In the 1950s, he led a commando unit that carried out reprisals for Arab attacks. In 1953, after the slaying of an Israeli woman and her two children, Sharon's troops blew up more than 40 houses in Qibya, a West Bank village then ruled by Jordan, killing 69 Arabs, most or all of them civilians. 
 
 Residents in Qibya on Sunday remembered the village's darkest hour. Qibya resident Hamed Ghethan was just 4 years old when the raid took place. He said he could remember older residents placing their hands over the children's mouths so they wouldn't make a sound. 
 
 "Sharon's name reminds me of... martyrs from my village," said Ghethan, 65, as he surveyed the ruins of buildings destroyed in the military action. 
 
 As one of Israel's most famous generals, he was known for bold tactics and an occasional refusal to obey orders. 
 
 Historians credit him with helping turn the tide of the 1973 Mideast war when Arab armies launched a surprise attack on Israel on the solemn fasting day of Yom Kippur, causing heavy Israeli casualties. 
 
 Sharon became a minister in Menachem Begin's government in the late 1970s, and voted against the historic 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. But when it fell to Sharon to remove Jewish settlements from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, he obediently ordered protesting settlers to be dragged away and their homes bulldozed to rubble. 
 
 As defense minister in 1982, Sharon launched the invasion of Lebanon, where he became complicit in one of bloodiest incidents of the Lebanese war, when Israeli-allied forces systematically slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in September 1982. An Israeli judicial inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible for the killings, and he was forced to step down as defense minister. 
 
 Yet over the years, he gradually rehabilitated himself by holding a number of Cabinet posts. 
 
 As opposition leader in September 2000, Sharon demonstratively visited a contested Jewish-Muslim holy site in Jerusalem, setting off Palestinian protests that quickly lurched into an armed uprising that ultimately killed hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis. 
 
 Several months later, he was elected prime minister. While Sharon ordered a tough crackdown on the Palestinian uprising, he made a dramatic about-face in 2003 when he announced his plans for a unilateral withdrawal from occupied lands. 
 
 In 2005, he directed a unilateral pullout of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, ending a 38-year occupation. 
 
 He later bolted from his hard-line Likud Party and established the centrist Kadima Party, with a platform promoting further territorial concessions and support for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. 
 
 It seemed he was on his way to an easy re-election when he suffered the stroke in January 2006. ||||| Israel beefed up security for former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's funeral near the Gaza border on Monday and warned the enclave's Palestinian rulers not to allow rocket fire during the ceremony, which US Vice President Joe Biden will attend. 
 
 Sharon died at the age of 85 on Saturday after eight years in a coma caused by a stroke. A memorial service will be held on Monday in parliament in Jerusalem and an afternoon funeral near the Sharon family farm some 10 km (6 miles) from Gaza. 
 
 The United States was among 18 countries to send delegations to the state ceremony for Sharon in Jerusalem. The White House said Biden would also travel to the burial at Sycamore Farm's Poppy Hill, in the southern Negev desert. 
 
 An Israeli security source said Israel had "passed the message" to Gazan authorities to prevent any rocket fire during the funeral. Gaza is governed by Hamas Islamists who fought several times with Israel over the past few years. 
 
 "It was made clear to them that tomorrow would be a very bad day for anyone there to test Israel's patience," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 
 
 There was no immediate response from the Hamas government or other armed Palestinian factions. Egyptian officials, who in the past have served as mediators between Israel and Gaza, were unavailable for comment. 
 
 A Reuters correspondent heard two explosions in northern Gaza on Monday morning which sounded like rocket impacts. An Israeli military spokeswoman said there had been no launches across the border. Israeli media said the blasts appeared to have resulted from Palestinian militants testing their weapons. 
 
 At times of heightened tension Israel steps up aerial patrols of Gaza with combat helicopters and drones designed to spot Palestinian rocket crews and hit them with guided missiles before they can carry out launches. 
 
 Security sources said Israel had deployed an Iron Dome rocket interceptor near Sycamore Farm, which has been hit by Gaza-launched rockets in the past. 
 
 The rockets are often inaccurate and carry small warheads, causing relatively little damage. When fired in salvoes they spread panic and paralyse routine life in south Israel. 
 
 How to handle Gaza is among the sticking points in Israel's US-sponsored peace negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas's rival based in the occupied West Bank. 
 
 During his brief visit to Israel, Biden will discuss the so far fruitless diplomatic efforts with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, U.S. officials said. 
 
 The vice president will also seek to ease Netanyahu's concerns about world powers' interim nuclear deal with Israel's arch-foe Iran, which takes effect on 20 January. 
 
 Biden is seen by Israel and its US supporters as one of its best friends in Washington in a career dating back to his decades on Capitol Hill, where he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before assuming the vice presidency. 
 
 Israel's Army Radio said there had been no intelligence indications that Palestinians were planning to shell Sharon's funeral. Yet authorities braced for any surprise. 
 
 "We are taking the full range of possible scenarios into account," southern police commander Yoram Halevy told the station. "The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) is prepared, informed and ready to respond if so required." 
 
 Since a 2012 eight-day war with Israel, which killed some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis, Hamas has largely held fire but smaller militant groups have occasionally challenged its authority with their own rocket attacks into the Jewish state. ||||| Faced with the intense difficulty of what to say about Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister who died early Saturday after eight years in a coma, President Barack Obama didn’t say much. 
 
 The statement from Obama — who never met Sharon, and wasn’t yet even running for president when he fell into a coma, mentioned nothing about the Israeli leader’s own complicated history with war and peace, remarking only in sending “our deepest condolences” that he was a leader who “dedicated his life to the State of Israel.” 
 
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 In diplomacy, there’s no such thing as a simple eulogy. For some, it’s a lot easier — not a lot of people struggled over what to say about Nelson Mandela last month, for example. But Sharon is a different case. 
 
 The U.S. has been drawn more into the Middle East in recent months due to negotiations over Syria and Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the general stance the government has toward the Arab world. That means every word could reverberate much longer and much farther than the next few days. 
 
 Obama’s statement looked forward, without Sharon. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Obama’s Israel trip) 
 
 “We reaffirm our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security and our appreciation for the enduring friendship between our two countries and our two peoples,” Obama said. “We continue to strive for lasting peace and security for the people of Israel, including through our commitment to the goal of two states living side-by-side in peace and security. As Israel says goodbye to Prime Minister Sharon, we join with the Israeli people in honoring his commitment to his country.” 
 
 Key audiences among Americans, Israelis and Palestinians are watching carefully how Obama and other leaders grapple with it over the next few days. A military funeral for Sharon is planned for Monday afternoon, following a state memorial service held at the Knesset. 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden released a statement with his own condolences, saying he’ll lead the American delegation to the memorial service. Secretary of State John Kerry is also expected to attend. 
 
 There was also Israeli politics to deal with, particularly Benjamin Netanyahu, who since returning as Israel’s prime minister in 2008 has often been seen as sensitive about comparisons to his old rival. With Kerry in the next few weeks preparing to deliver a peace “framework” he’s been haggling over for almost a year with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, the American approach to Sharon could matter to Netanyahu, and thus the fledgling peace efforts most of all. 
 
 Sharon’s the man who was the great Israeli military hero, the defense minister forced to resign, the Israeli prime minister whose return many despised and later embraced. The last, along with Israeli President Shimon Peres, of the founding generation of Israeli politicians, there at the creation of the state in 1948 and throughout the 65 years since. 
 
 He’s the man who’ll forever be associated in the minds of many Palestinians, as well as Israelis and Americans, with the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, which left, by some counts, 3,500 civilians dead. He’s also the man who 20 years later surprised many by making the most substantial steps toward peace since Yitzhak Rabin, including withdrawing from Gaza in 2005. He’s a man who embodied a swaggering Jewish nationalism more than even most Israelis, yet he’s also a man who struck many as more sensitive than most to the idea of equal political rights for Arabs. 
 
 (PHOTOS: The life of Ariel Sharon) 
 
 Behind every American politician’s statement that comes out over the course of the day—from the White House on down to individual members of Congress — is likely a lot of hemming and hawing over what to say, what not to say, and how to say any of it. 
 
 Whatever is said in statements or afterward about Sharon has to be “tactful about using words like ‘bold’ and ‘courageous,’ so that nobody gets the feeling that this is a too-clever-by-half insinuation that we wish he were here today,” said Washington Institute for Near East Studies senior fellow David Pollock. “If they really want to thread the needle, they might say, ‘this was a man who went through some major changes in his lifetime and he became a man of peace — he wasn’t always that, but that was implied.” 
 
 Kerry’s statement was much longer than Obama’s, and deeper, reflecting on a relationship that started when he met Sharon as a young lawyer in Boston to talking with “this big bear of a man.” The United States had differences with Sharon, but despite those, Kerry said “you admired the man who was determined to ensure the security and survival of the Jewish State.” 
 
 “In his final years as Prime Minister, he surprised many in his pursuit of peace, and today, we all recognize, as he did, that Israel must be strong to make peace, and that peace will also make Israel stronger,” Kerry said. “We honor Arik’s legacy and those of Israel’s founding generation by working to achieve that goal.” 
 
 Neither the White House nor the State Department immediately rushed statements out Saturday morning while waiting for the official Israeli government announcement. 
 
 Some arrived earlier, including from former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a joint statement on Sharon “honoring his memory and offering our condolences.” 
 
 “Ariel Sharon gave his life to Israel — to bring it into being, to sustain and preserve it, and at the end of his long service, to create a new political party committed to both a just peace and lasting security,” the statement read. “It was an honor to work with him, argue with him, and watch him always trying to find the right path for his beloved country.” 
 
 Back during Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, Sharon worked for him, eventually as his foreign minister. When Netanyahu began staging his return after a 1999 defeat at the polls, Sharon was also looking to complete his own political resurgence with a turn as prime minister, and ultimately beat out Netanyahu, who eventually became one of his ministers. 
 
 Netanyahu quit the government over the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and not long after, Sharon quit his own political party, abandoning the right-wing Likud that he’d been part of for decades to start a new one — Kadima, which translates to “forward.” When Sharon collapsed, they were preparing to run against each other as open rivals, and Sharon was expected to win more seats in the Israeli Knesset but have to deal with internal opposition from Netanyahu. 
 
 In his statement, Netanyahu said, “the State of Israel bows its head over the passing of former prime minister Ariel Sharon,” adding, “His memory will forever be held in the heart of the nation.” 
 
 At the same time, the hatred for Sharon among Palestinians hasn’t dissipated, said Khaled Elgindy, a former adviser to the Palestinian negotiators who’s now a fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute. 
 
 “It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, Palestinians or others in the Arab world say about him, since eulogies tend to be neutral, if not positive,” Elgindy said, as word of Sharon’s death circulated Saturday morning. “Obviously, no Palestinian, no Arab, would have anything good to say about Ariel Sharon. He is sort of in a class by himself when it comes to Palestinians, because he has such a brutal history: He is associated with massacres. He’s not simply seen as someone who’s tough or hardnosed or ideological — he is seen as a cold-hearted killer.” 
 
 A Hamas spokesman released a statement saying “We have become more confident in victory with the departure of this tyrant,” adding, “Our people today feel extreme happiness at the death and departure of this criminal whose hands were smeared with the blood of our people and the blood of our leaders here and in exile.”
– Israel has paid its final respects to divisive former leader Ariel Sharon, who died over the weekend after eight years in a coma. World leaders and Israeli officials gathered for a state memorial service in Jerusalem, which will be followed by a second funeral service at the Sharon family ranch near the Gaza border where he will be buried next to his wife, reports the Guardian. The Israeli military says two rockets were fired from Gaza just before the service but they do not appear to have landed in Israel, the AP reports. Critics denounce Sharon as a war criminal but funeral speakers including Joe Biden and Tony Blair were full of praise at the Jerusalem service, reports Reuters. Biden paid tribute to Sharon's decision to pull out of the Gaza Strip, while acknowledging that he had serious differences with US leaders. "The security of his people was always Arik's unwavering mission—an unbreakable commitment to the future of Jews, whether 30 years or 300 years from now," Biden said, describing Sharon as a complex man who lived in complex times. "Arik was never uncertain. But there were times when he acted, and those actions earned him controversy and even condemnation," he said. "And in certain instances American leaders, American presidents, had profound differences with him. And they were never shy about stating them. Nor was he ever shy about stating his position."