Thousands of Palestinians, including journalists and rival politicians, marched through Gaza City today for the funeral of a TV cameraman killed while covering a Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Gaza erupted in the worst day of violence in a month, with at least 20 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers dead, and putting Egyptian efforts to mediate a cease-fire in jeopardy.

Palestinian militants attacked the Gaza Strip’s main cargo crossing with mortar fire early today, slightly wounding an Israeli truck driver in the latest flare-up of violence in the coastal strip.

An Associated Press photographer was released late tonight after a harrowing day in the hands of Palestinian gunmen who abducted him at gunpoint in Gaza - the latest in a string of kidnappings of foreigners in the chaotic area.

MASKED gunmen assassinated a Sunni Arab cleric who had headed the city council in once-restive Fallujah yesterday.

PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday Israel is prepared to make “painful compromises for peace”, and has begun co-ordination with Palestinians on Israel’s planned pull-out from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian police were searching for an Israeli Arab producer for the TV network CNN kidnapped at gunpoint on a busy Gaza City street, and the network joined journalists’ associations is demanding his immediate release.

British journalist Peter Hounam was released from Israeli custody tonight after a day in custody on suspicions linked to freed nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI, Italian Prime Minister and temporary head of the EU, has won the Miscommunicator of the Year award from the Foreign Press Association.

A BRITISH journalist shot dead while filming Israeli Army operations in the Gaza Strip was hit from behind, raising the possibility that he was killed

Israel was today maintaining its grip over West Bank towns, confining at least 700,000 Palestinians to their homes under curfew orders.

Journalist Mohammed Daraghmeh, who reports on events in the West Bank for The Associated Press, was released late today after being detained by Israeli troops earlier in the day