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BEIT HANOUN, Gaza - Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered at a mass funeral in Gaza on Thursday as the bodies of 18 civilians killed by Israeli shelling were buried to the accompaniment of gunfire and vows of revenge.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a technical failure by Israeli artillery was responsible for the deaths.
"As I said before, this really was a mistake. It was a technical failure," Olmert said in broadcast remarks.
A Palestinian official accused Israel of "state terrorism" over the attack in Gaza and said Israeli apologies for such incidents were insincere and no longer acceptable.
"This is terrorism, this is state terrorism," Palestinian UN Observer Riyad Mansour told an emergency Security Council meeting. "These are war crimes for which the perpetrators must be held accountable under international law."
In Gaza, groups of militants, some masked and firing weapons in the air, flanked a procession as it snaked through the streets of Beit Hanoun, where Wednesday's attack took place, before the dead were laid to rest in a new cemetery.
The bodies, including seven children and four women, were each wrapped in a yellow flag, the symbol of the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and born aloft on stretchers among a vast crowd of tearful and angry mourners.
Cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) filled the air as the bodies were placed in their graves. The youngest was an 18-month-old girl laid in the ground by her weeping father.
After the burials, a Fatah official pledged vengeance on Israel in a loudspeaker address to the crowds.
"Killers in Israel, you will never be able to defeat one Palestinian child," said Abdul Hakim Awad.
"We say, an eye for an eye and a soul for a soul. There will be no security in Ashkelon, no security in Tel Aviv or Haifa, until our people in Beit Hanoun are made secure."
Palestinian leaders have called Wednesday's attack a massacre. Some lawmakers from the governing Hamas movement in Gaza have threatened to resume suicide attacks against Israel.
Israeli leaders including Olmert have expressed remorse for the shelling. The army said it was targeting rocket launchers who use the Beit Hanoun area as a staging ground to fire makeshift missiles at the Jewish state.
After the incident, Israel's defence minister ordered a halt to artillery fire in Gaza pending the outcome of an inquiry that was to be completed by Thursday.
Without directly referring to the inquiry, Olmert said the artillery shells had mistakenly been fired in the wrong direction.
"The (intended) direction was entirely different, (towards) an orange grove where we spotted shooting seconds before. But I can't promise you that when we shoot here by some technical failure it won't go there."
The Beit Hanoun killings rallied Palestinians after months of factional infighting between Fatah and Hamas, an Islamist group dedicated to Israel's destruction.
But Damascus-based Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, urged retaliation. Hamas declared a partial truce in March 2005 that expired at the year-end. It has not carried out suicide bombings in Israel since 2004.
Hamas' armed wing, decrying Washington's support for Israel, appeared to call on Muslims to attack US targets, urging them "to teach the American enemy harsh lessons," calls that have not been heard in the past.
While the European Union said it was "appalled" by the Gaza shelling, an initial response by the United States stopped short of reprimanding Israel. Olmert is due to meet President George W. Bush in Washington on Monday.
The Beit Hanoun killings brought together the moderate Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who have been at odds over a proposal to create a unity government that might help lift a Western aid blockade.
Abbas and Meshaal later spoke by telephone, in a further sign of greater cooperation between the rival movements, suggesting progress could soon be made on a unity government.
Haniyeh suspended coalition talks after the Beit Hanoun shelling but said he expected them to resume within days. A senior Abbas aide said a unity government could be imminent.
- REUTERS
