The attacks led Sharon to postpone his trip to Washington. Sharon had planned to leave Sunday to present Israel's reservations to a roadmap for peace that the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia have presented.
The meeting with U.S. President George Bush had been scheduled for Tuesday.
Sharon and Abu Mazen's meeting, in the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, Saturday night, was the highest-ranking talks between Israel and the Palestinians since the second intifada began almost three years ago.
Palestinian Authority Information Minister Nabil Amer Sunday denounced the series of suicide bombings.
Amer said that the Palestinian Authority strongly denounced the blasts, adding that the Authority is taking serious measures to avert such attacks in the future and create the right atmosphere to resume peace talks.
Still later Sunday, the Israeli Army fired heavy artillery towards
Palestinian owned houses in the Khan Younis refugee camp, south of the Gaza
Strip, killing an 18 year old Palestinian, Palestinian sources reported.
Saturday night, Sharon and Abu Mazen were meeting, six Palestinians were killed in another wave of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
With Sharon putting off his visit to Washington, the question remained how seriously the new process of talks with the Palestinians had been damaged by the latest bombings. The parties previously had agreed to resume their meeting "soon after the prime minister returns from the United States," according to a statement released early Sunday.
Since then, however, were two more suicide bombings. Shortly before 6 a.m. local time a bomber dressed up as a Jew wearing a skullcap and carrying a prayer shawl boarded a No. 6 bus heading for central Jerusalem. He blew himself up in the front section of the bus killing seven passengers and wounding 20, police said.
The explosion occurred near an intersection that links Jewish neighborhoods in northeast and west Jerusalem, with the highway linking the Palestinian neighborhoods north of Jerusalem and the main road to the Old City. It was the first suicide attack in Jerusalem in seven months.
Commander of the Jerusalem police Major Gen. Mikki Levy said the bus driver lost control. There were few passengers at that early hour, an eyewitness traveling in another bus said.
A few minutes later another bomber exploded near a Border Police roadblock on the Jerusalem-Ramallah road. Levy said the policemen hastily set up a roadblock there to try and catch whoever drove the bus bomber to Jerusalem.
"A man approached the roadblock, was ordered to stop, ordered again and blew himself up. He was killed. There were no (other) casualties in this attack," Levy said.
A statement the Israeli Prime Minister's Office issued at 1 a.m., after the Sharon-Abu Mazen meeting, said the two leaders agreed, "A cessation of terror is a vital first step to any progress and the Palestinians promised to make a genuine and real effort to stop terror."
At the start of the meeting, Sharon expressed his outrage at the earlier attack that killed an Israeli man, Gadi Levy, and his pregnant wife, Dina.
Both were killed Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up next to homes belonging to Jewish settlers living in the West Bank town of Hebron.
Israeli and Palestinian sources said the Hebron bomber was also disguised as a religious Jew.
He approached the Gross Square on the road linking the Tomb of the Patriarchs with the settlers' compounds but his behavior aroused the suspicion of troops stationed there. When soldiers called on the man to stop, he ran over to the couple and blew himself up.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for any of the attacks but Israeli media said the Hebron bomber was Fuad Kawasmeh, a Hamas member.
Close to midnight, at about the time Sharon and Abu Mazen wound up their talks, two Palestinian militants armed with Kalachnikov rifles approached a fence that surrounds the settlement of Ganei Tikva, northeast of Tel Aviv.
Soldiers rushed over, the gunmen fired at them and were killed, the Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met with Sharon and Abu Mazen earlier this week, had urged the two leaders to meet as soon as possible.
The internationally drafted roadmap that the two prime ministers discussed calls for a series of reciprocal steps to address Israeli security and, ultimately, an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
Israel Radio quoted the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Ahmad Qurei (better known as Abu Ala), who attended the meeting, as saying the Israelis offered to pull troops out of several areas the Gaza Strip, and out of the centers of several West Bank towns.
The Israel idea had been to let the Palestinians start enforcing their authority in a few areas and if they succeed, the Israelis would evacuate additional areas.
Abu Ala said the Palestinians told the Israelis they may withdraw, unilaterally, if they so wish but that the Palestinians would accept nothing before Israel officially accepts the roadmap.
One of the first steps in the roadmap calls for a settlement freeze but Sharon has shown no willingness to put an end to the expansion of settlements.
Israeli officials have produced a list of 14 changes it wishes to see made before it accepts the plan. Sharon has said Israel wants security to be achieved before anything else happens.
In recent days, Israeli military officials have been complaining that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is encouraging his supporters to step up attacks and is undermining Abu Mazen. The Palestinian prime minister has long been an ally of Arafat but has clashed bitterly with him recently over the makeup of his cabinet.
Israel has refused to deal any longer with Arafat but has said it will negotiate with Abu Mazen, who was the Palestinian architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
"The big problem is sitting in the Muqataa," Israeli Military Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon told Channel 10. He was referring to Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"Of course" Arafat signals militants to attack Israelis, he said. "When you see terror around Ramallah, it is a signal to the Fatah (Arafat's party) what the commander wants," Yaalon added.
On Thursday, in a background briefing for reporters in Tel Aviv, an Israeli military official claimed Arafat was "trying to bypass Abu Mazen." Arafat is issuing orders to "Palestinian resistance groups" including the Fatah Tanzim to increase their activity, he said.
Abu Mazen's chances of asserting his authority in Gaza are better than in the West Bank for several reasons. Not only is the Palestinian Preventive Security arrangement in Gaza still intact, but Mohammad Dahlan, the new Palestinian minister of state for security affairs, formed the PPS there and continues to wield a strong influence over it. In addition, Israel has less to risk there because it has surrounded the Gaza Strip with an electronic fence.
The area remains turbulent, however. The Israel Defense Forces moved into the Beit Hanun area, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, and remains there in what it says is an effort to eliminate the sources of rockets and mortars launched from there into Israel. Palestinian sources say six people, children as well as militants, have since died in clashes with Israeli troops.
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