Blast kills Palestinian militant

The blast is being blamed on Israel

Three Palestinians, including a senior militant, have been killed in a car explosion in the village of Beit Sahour, near the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Atef Abayat, the Bethlehem military leader of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, was said by Israel to have commanded attacks on its citizens.

Hundreds attended Rehavam Zeevi's funeral

The blast came a day after Israel promised retribution for the assassination of its Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi, by Palestinian militants in a Jerusalem hotel.

Zeevi, the first elected official to be killed by Palestinians since the creation of the Jewish state, was buried in an emotional ceremony on Thursday.

Israel refused to confirm or deny it was behind the militant's death, but Israeli security sources confirmed that Abayat was dead, and said they had been calling for his arrest for a long time.

Targeting militants

Israel has renewed its policy of tracking and killing militants on its most wanted list, saying it is forced to do so because Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat does not arrest them.

An aide to Mr Arafat has even accused Israel of plotting to assassinate the Palestinian leader himself.

"The Palestinian Authority has discovered Israeli plans to assassinate President Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders," Nabil Abu Rudeina said.

Israel has dismissed the accusation as a fabricatrion, and an Israeli Government spokesman said Israel was not involved in an overall war with the Palestinian Authority.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Jerusalem says Abayat led the Palestinian shooting campaign against the Jewish settlement of Gilo, located on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

She says he had been detained by Mr Arafat's security forces, but was later released.

Following the blast, Palestinian gunmen began firing on Gilo, witnesses said.

An army spokesman said bullets damaged several houses and an army outpost.

After nightfall, Palestinian gunmen fired at a car travelling between Jerusalem and Jericho in the West Bank, killing one of the Israeli passengers and wounding two others.

Zeevi's Funeral

Earlier on Thursday, Israel buried its murdered minister.

Eight Israeli generals carried the coffin of Zeevi, an ultra-nationalist former general, after leaders and family members eulogised him at a state ceremony attended by hundreds of mourners.

Zeevi's son, Yiftach, called on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to avenge his father's death. "Avenge the way [Zeevi] would avenge you," he said.

A Palestinian gunman aims at Israeli troops

Mr Sharon said: "I am parting from you, with great pain, an adversary and a friend.

"Today we are parting from a determined and hard person whose love for the country was greater than his love of people."

Zeevi was a highly controversial politician. A staunch opponent of the land-for-peace deals with the Palestinians, he was shot dead in a Jerusalem hotel by two unknown gunmen early on Wednesday morning.

Heavy price

Cabinet secretary Gideon Saar told Mr Arafat to hand over Zeevi's killers or face the consequences.

Israel, he said, would "act against the Palestinian Authority in the way currently accepted by the international community to act against a leadership that supports terror".

In the first sign of retaliation for his killing, Israeli forces entered Palestinian-controlled Ramallah and the outskirts of Jenin, where shots fired from a tank hit a school classroom, killing 11-year-old Riham Nabil and injuring five others.

A police sergeant and a member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17 security organisation were also shot dead in Ramallah as gunfire broke out after Israeli tanks and bulldozers pushed into the town.