Hundreds line up to bid farewell to Ariel Sharon

Hundred of Israelis lined up outside Isreal's parliament building to pay their last respects to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who died over the weekend after an eight-year coma.

Despite his death coming less of a shock, hundreds of visitors lined up in front of the Knesset and in the surrounding streets to take photos and bid farewell to their former leader.

A funeral service is scheduled for Monday before a military convoy transports Sharon's body for burial at his farm in southern Israel.

Sharon, one of Israel's most iconic and controversial figures, was 85 years old and had been in a coma since 2006 when a stroke incapacitated him at the height of his political power.

Officials at the hospital announced a week ago that Sharon's health had deteriorated sharply and that he was in "grave condition" with his family at his bedside.

After spending months in the Jerusalem hospital where he was initially treated, Sharon was transferred to the long-term care facility at Tel Hashomer hospital. He was taken home briefly at one point but returned to the hospital, where he had remained until his death.

Even so, for many Israelis he will be mourned as a giant figure who played a key role in shaping Israel both as a soldier and a statesman. His passing severs the last link to the iconic generation which fought in the 1948 war that followed the declaration of the state. His reputation as a fearless - and controversial - soldier was matched by his uncompromising ideology as a politician.

Among Palestinians and leftwing Israelis, he will be remembered as a powerful and reviled champion of Israel's colonial settlement project, and the political force behind the construction of the vast concrete and steel separation barrier that snakes through the West Bank. Many will not forgive his role in the killing of hundreds of Palestinians in refugee camps in Beirut in the 1980s.

Sharon - known as "Arik" to his friends, "the Bulldozer" to his critics - was a giant figure, both literally and metaphorically, in Israel. He was accused of war crimes after between 800 and 2,000 Palestinians were butchered at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982 in Lebanon by Phalangist Christians while Israeli forces stood by. Sharon was defence minister at the time.