Mass funeral march for top Palestinian official

Palestinians were preparing a mass funeral procession through the West Bank today for Faisal Husseini, the top Palestinian official in Jerusalem, who died earlier of a heart attack during a visit to Kuwait.

Meanwhile violence persisted, despite a unilateral ceasefire declared by the Israelis. Palestinians fired four mortar shells early today at the Jewish settlement of Slav in the Gaza Strip. No one was hurt.

A Palestinian teenager was killed yesterday in a clash with Israeli forces, a Palestinian child died a month after being injured in a Gaza explosion and an Israeli settler was killed in a West Bank shooting.

Ahmed Salah Abu el-Hilu, 17, was killed and another critically injured in a clash with Israeli forces near Ramallah, hospital doctors said.

Ramadan Asanei, 12, injured in an explosion in Gaza on April 30, died in a hospital. Two people were killed in the blast in a house that belonged to an activist from the militant Hamas.

Earlier, a Jewish settler, Zvi Shelef, 60, was killed when Palestinians fired at his car in the West Bank, the fourth settler to be killed this week.

Angry settlers demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon drop his policy of restraint and hit back. Palestinians have dismissed Sharon’s ceasefire call as a publicity stunt, blaming Israel for the violence.

Late Thursday, an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded by Palestinian gunfire at an Israeli army vehicle near Ramallah in the West Bank, the military said.

Since fighting erupted last September, 483 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 88 on the Israeli side, including 24 settlers.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Farah Bouto, 54, was shot and killed in front of his house by gunmen in a passing car. Bouto was imprisoned for a year by the Palestinian Authority for selling land to Israelis. Palestinian police said they were investigating the killing.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat linked Husseini’s death to the violence. He said Husseini’s health was affected by Israeli tear gas.

Husseini, scion of a leading Palestinian family in Jerusalem, parlayed the Orient House, an unused family hotel, into an unofficial Palestinian foreign ministry in the Arab section of Jerusalem, angering successive Israeli governments.

For years Husseini conducted dialogues with Israeli peace activists, who called him a moderating influence. However, in recent years Arafat eased Husseini out of leadership roles in what many said was a personal rivalry.

Husseini, 60, was in Kuwait to attend a conference. He died suddenly in his hotel room. His body was flown to Jordan, and from there was to be brought to Ramallah, accompanied by Arafat, and then to Jerusalem.

Husseini was to be buried at Haram as-Sharif in the Old City of Jerusalem in a small cemetery for Palestinian notables, next to his father, a legendary fighter who was killed in the 1948 war that followed creation of the state of Israel.

Haram as-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, refers to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, built over the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples. Dispute over sovereignty there is a key sticking point in stalled Israel-Palestinian negotiations.

After eight months of violence, the United States is making efforts to bring the two sides together again. US diplomats met with Israeli officials yesterday to discuss implementation of a report by an international commission headed by former US Senator George Mitchell.

The report recommended a staged process of an end to violence, confidence-building measures and a return to negotiations.

However, there have been no Palestinian-US meetings over the Mitchell report since the US expressed displeasure over Palestinian representation at another track of talks, involving security commanders, according to an official close to the negotiations who demanded anonymity.