TEHRAN At least five Palestinians were wounded in separate clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Three Palestinians were injured when the Israeli Army opened fire on a group of demonstrators protesting at the closure of a road near the West Bank town of Al-Khalil by Zionist settlers, witnesses said.

Clashes erupted in an Israel-controlled area in the divided city after settlers blocked the road leading from Al-Khalil to the Palestinian village of Siir to the north, they said.

One Palestinian was hit with live ammunition and another two with rubber-coated steel bullets.

In the Gaza Strip, two Palestinians were wounded after being shot by Israeli troops at the industrial zone near the Erez checkpoint into Israel, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Palestinians said protests flared after workers at the Israeli-controlled zone in the north of the Gaza Strip were ordered to undergo searches by sniffer dogs.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat attended later Tuesday the funeral of a top Palestinian police officer who was killed the day before while trying to dismantle an unexploded Israeli shell.

General Abdel as-Sabawi, 55, an explosives expert who was the right-hand man of Palestinian Civil Police Chief Ghazi Jibali, was be buried with full military-style honors.

Arafat left for Cairo after the funeral, and is expected to have talks Wednesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Israeli troops and Palestinians traded gunfire for several hours late Monday near the Jewish settlement of Psagot in the West Bank, Army Radio reported, but said there were no injuries.

The Israeli forces retaliated after shots were fired on Psagot from the Palestinian-run town of Ramallah and nearby El-Bireh, the radio report said.

It was one of the most serious gunfights near the settlement, which has frequently been the target of Palestinian gunfire since the tide of Israeli-Palestinian violence exploded almost 12 weeks ago.

The army also said shots were fired at a car near the settlement of Itamar near the Palestinian town of Nablus in the north of the West Bank. There were no reports of injuries.

More than 340 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the violence that has raged through the region since late September.

France's Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that authorities had banned delivery of tear gas grenades and launchers to Israel.

A ministry spokesman told reporters that the Ciemg State Arms Export Licensing Agency requested the ban. He gave no further details or explanation of the ban, which comes against the backdrop of a bloody Palestinian uprising.

Le Monde newspaper, which broke news of the ban last month, said bitter Israeli officials accused Paris of "doublespeak" for asking Israel not to use live ammunition to quell riots but at the same time refusing to supply nonlethal weaponry.

Despite protests in the occupied lands over the Washington mediation for peace talks with Israel, Palestinian negotiators arrived in Washington on Tuesday for talks at a secluded U.S. Air Force Base on how to stop Israeli-Palestinian violence and resume negotiations on a peace agreement.

But Saeb Erekat, the head of the Palestinian delegation, told reporters at Washington's National Airport: "To be honest I do not have high expectations."