TEHRAN Israelis and Palestinians exchanged fire near Bethlehem and a bomb went off near a Jewish settlement Sunday as eight people were injured on another day of Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Eight Palestinians were hurt, including a 12-year-old boy who was seriously injured in the head, when the Zionist Army fired at least three shells near Bethlehem, hospital sources said.
The Palestinians had just participated in a funeral at the Beit Jalah Church.
The soldiers launched the shells from Gilo, a Zionist settlement adjacent to Al-Qods, in response to automatic weapon fire from Beit Jalah, a majority Christian town that faces the settlement, military sources said.
In the Gaza Strip, a bomb exploded by a road near the Zionist settlement of Kfar Darom as two carloads of settlers were passing, causing no casualties but damaging the vehicles, an army spokesman said.
Palestinians also opened fire on Israeli cars and buses traveling between Al-Qods and Bethlehem, again without causing injury.
Palestinian sources said a group calling itself the "Hussein Abayat Brigade" claimed responsibility for the shootings.
Hussein Abayat, 37, a military official of Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah group, was killed by a Zionist helicopter gunship on Thursday which the Israelis said deliberately targeted him.
Six Palestinians were also killed Saturday in various confrontations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, taking the total death toll to 210 since the Intifada, or uprising, broke out after a visit by Zionist opposition leader Ariel Sharon to a disputed religious site in Al-Qods on Sept. 28.
More than 90 percent of those killed were Palestinians.
Meanwhile, on Sunday President Arafat vowed that the Palestinian people would continue their revolt until the end of Israeli occupation.
"Our people are now more than ever determined to pursue their struggle in the Al-Aqsa uprising. It is an uprising for liberty and independence to shake off the clutches of occupation," Arafat said at the opening of the Islamic summit in Qatar.
"The Palestinian people know the importance of the sacrifices they have to make to realize this objective," he said.
In the meantime, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Sunday the Palestinian dream of an independent state could be achieved only through the Middle East peace process rather than violence.
"Such a settlement, I believe, can only be secure when the entire Middle East peace process has reached a successful conclusion," Annan told the opening session of a three-day Islamic summit in the Qatari capital.
"The past eight weeks have made abundantly clear to all sides that the cause of peace can only be damaged by excessive use of force, indiscriminate violence or terror," Annan said, referring to the deadly Israeli-Palestinian clashes.
"Do we achieve peace by encouraging violence, promoting hatred, and perpetuating mistrust, or by fostering cooperation and dialogue?" he asked, in an apparent call for moderation from the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
About 500,000 women marched through the Yemeni capital on Sunday in support of the Palestinians and to press the Islamic summit to back the Intifada or uprising, the organizers said.
The demonstrators demanded that the 56 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, meeting at a summit in Qatar, take concrete action in favor of the Palestinians, said the organizers, led by Parliamentary Speaker Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar.
The protestors, echoing government calls for a Jihad or holy war against Israel, gathered at a major square in the south of Sanaa to hear speeches, a correspondent reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's talks with U.S. President Bill Clinton aimed at ending six weeks of Middle East bloodshed were back on again Sunday after the peaceful end to a hijacking drama in Israel.
The new diplomatic push came as Israelis and Palestinians prepared to bury their dead after another bloody day in the occupied territories, where violent incidents were reported early Sunday.
Barak, en route to Washington for talks with Clinton, had turned back and was heading for home after the hijacking of a Russian plane that landed in Israel at dawn.
But the prime minister later decided to continue for Washington after the lone hijacker surrendered at a remote military airbase in Israel's southern Negev Desert and all 58 passengers and crew were released unharmed.
David Ziso, a spokesman for Barak, said the prime minister himself, who was in London when the drama unfolded, had given the authorization for the plane to land in Israel.
"He then decided to return to the United States given the positive developments in the matter", Ziso told AFP.
Barak however, last week expressed little hope that his talks with Clinton would succeed in ending the violence that has left the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in tatters.