BBC News Ariel Sharon death Israelis pay respects at Knesset

Описание: Palestinians have denounced him as a war criminal and in the Gaza Strip people celebrated his death.

"He wanted to erase the Palestinian people from the map... He wanted to kill us, but at the end of the day, Sharon is dead and the Palestinian people are alive," said Tawfik Tirawi, who served as Palestinian intelligence chief when Sharon was prime minister.Mr Sharon, known as "The Bulldozer", was a giant of Israel's military and political scene, whose term as prime minister ended abruptly when he had a major stroke that put him in a coma in January 2006.

Months before his stroke, he had guided Israelis through a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, with the declared aim of easing tensions with the Palestinians.