Palestinians bury teenager killed in crossfire
Palestinians have buried an 18-year-old woman killed in crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen as the US pushed to quell violence ahead of any peace talks.
About 1,000 people gathered in Hebron for the funeral of Arij Jabili, who was shot in the heart on Friday when bullets pierced the walls of her home near the Jewish settlement of Beit Hagai in the West Bank.
Gunmen fired in the air around her corpse, which was covered by the Palestinian flag and that of militant group Hamas. The crowd chanted: "We will revenge the blood of our martyrs. Revenge, revenge."
Another funeral was under way in Gaza for a Palestinian man shot dead when he scaled a fence close to an army post late on Friday. The army said he was shouting an Islamic religious slogan, indicating he was planning an attack, but the man's family said he was mentally handicapped.
More than three months of bloodshed has claimed the lives of 358 people, most of them Palestinian.
George Tenet, chief of the CIA, was due to head to the region today as part of the US drive to contain the fighting and prepare for a final round of peace talks in President Bill Clinton's term.
Israel said it would resume negotiations only if the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat tried to reduce violence. Mr Tenet is due to meet senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials in Cairo on Sunday.
In London, Amnesty International said it was sending a delegation to investigate Israel's use of lethal force against civilians. Researchers will examine the use of "extrajudicial execution" in particular.
Over the past two months, Israeli forces have been targeting leaders of the uprising, or intifada, that began in late September. Palestinians say more than a dozen have been killed.
Top Israeli officials have confirmed Israel's role in only a few of the individual killings, but defend the practice without apology. Speaking this week on Israel radio, deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh said: "If anyone has committed or is planning to carry out terrorist attacks, he has to be hit."
