Vengeance cries as Palestinians bury their dead

Angry Palestinians are screaming for revenge for eight Palestinians killed in an Israeli helicopter raid.

A crowd of thousands of mourners surrounded the bodies as they were removed from the Nablus hospital and carried through the streets on stretchers, covered with Palestinian flags.

Women and children screamed and cried. Many waved green flags of the radical Palestinian group Hamas, whose offices were the target of Tuesday's assault.

"We will not stop our uprising," Anan al-Atiri, a spokeswoman for the Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said at the funeral. "I think the coming days will be worse than before."

Hours after the Israeli raid, Palestinians launched attacks against Israeli targets. Palestinians opened fire on Gilo, a Jewish neighbourhood in a disputed part of southern Jerusalem.

The Israelis responded with tank shelling and machine-gun fire in a shoot-out that lasted into the early hours. Five Israelis were injured, one seriously, when Palestinians fired at two cars in the West Bank.

In Gaza, Palestinians fired at least 15 mortar shells at Jewish settlements and army posts and exchanged fire with Israeli forces, the military said. No one was hurt.

Israeli security forces warned that Palestinian militants were likely to attempt a major attack, while government officials defended the Nablus assault, which killed six people in the third-floor Hamas office, including a senior leader.

Two brothers, aged five and eight were killed by shrapnel on the street below the offices.

Israeli officials said the main target of the operation was Jamal Mansour, 42, a top leader of Hamas, a militant Islamic group opposed to any peace negotiations with Israel.