Palestinians buried their dead on a second day of rage Saturday against Israeli occupation as a 13-year-old boy was shot and seriously injured by Jewish settlers in continued tension in Hebron.
The shooting of the child, whose family's house had been taken over by settlers the day before, came as tens of thousands of Palestinians turned out to bury loved ones or vent anger on the 13th anniversary of the start of the first Intifada, or uprising, against the Jewish state.
In Gaza City, angry Palestinians, many of them wearing masks and brandishing automatic weapons or knives, held a rally near the Al-Azhar University.
"We will burn all the settlers in the Palestinian territories," Palestinians yelled over loud speakers.
"Barak cannot scare us with threats that he will assassinate Palestinian people," others shouted, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
The rally, called by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, came a day after one of the worst explosions of Israeli-Palestinian violence since the uprising began more than 10 weeks ago.
A total of 10 people -- seven Palestinians and three Israelis -- were killed Friday in the West Bank and in occupied east Jerusalem.
The bloodshed has so far claimed 317 lives, mostly Palestinian, and led Arafat to call for UN protection in the territories.
At the east gate of Hebron, where some 400 extremist Jewish settlers live in armed enclaves among 120,000 Palestinians, Mansur Naji Jaber was evacuated by an Israeli helicopter to a Jerusalem hospital after being shot in the stomach and the leg by settlers.
On Friday, his family's house had been taken over by a group of armed settlers from Kyriat Arba, five kilometres (three miles) away. Israeli troops in the area did not prevent the occupation, witnesses told AFP.
On Saturday, family members and their supporters came back to reclaim the house, and violence broke out.
Mansur's house had been the target of repeated attacks by settlers over the past two years, witnesses said.
On Friday, a roadside attack by Palestinian gunmen near Hebron killed two Jewish settlers. Another Israeli was killed by Palestinian fire on a road in the West Bank town of Jericho.
Across the West Bank on Saturday, tens of thousands of mourners attended funerals for seven Palestinians, among them four policemen.
In the northern town of Jenin, mass crowds joined a funeral procession for the police officers and one civilian killed in a shelling attack by Israeli tanks.
"Vengeance! Vengeance!" armed men in the crowd cried out.
In a statement by the Palestinian Authority, information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo called the shelling attack on Jenin "a cold-blooded crime."
In the southern town of Bethlehem, some 10,000 people walked behind the casket of Moatazz Azmi Ismail, 18, killed by Israeli bullets after weekly prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
A seventh Palestinian, a 16-year-old boy, was buried in Ramallah, after being shot in the head by Israeli police in east Jerusalem during clashes near the al-Asqa mosque compound.
The confrontation came after a loose grouping of 13 Palestinian and Islamic factions, including Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad declared two "days of rage" against Israel.
Israel reinforced a tight blockade on the West Bank after the bloodletting, preventing all movement between Palestinian-controlled towns. Israel announced it had eased some restrictions within the past few weeks, but Palestinians claimed the closure had always been in force.
International efforts to stop blood from washing over the territories have been disperate and so far unsuccesful.
During a visit to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Arafat was expected to seek Riyadh's support in pressing Washington on a UN observer force in the region.
The United States, which has the power of veto over UN Security Council decisions, has said it will not accept any resolution on an observer force that is unacceptable to Israel.
Israel has repeatedly objected to the deployment of such a force.
The Security Council met Friday to start examining a compromise draft resolution for the establishment of a UN force of military and police observers in the territories.
In Tehran, the foreign ministry criticized the United Nations for not acting fast enough to help Palestinians.
"While international public opinion is waiting for firm action on the Palestinian issue, any procrastination is an encouragement for the Zionist regime to continue its attacks," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
"If nothing is done at the international level to solve the Palestinian crisis, we will witness a human tragedy," the spokesman said – HEBRON, West Bank (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
