Tears and anger as Gaza buries its dead

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza, Nov 9 (Reuters) Tens of thousands of Palestinians wept and screamed for revenge as they buried 18 civilians killed by Israeli shelling in a massive funeral in Gaza today.

''Killers in Israel, you will never be able to defeat one Palestinian child,'' Abdul Hakim Awad, an official of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saying he was very distressed by the deaths of innocents, blamed the carnage on a ''technical failure'' by Israeli artillery.

Groups of militants, some masked and firing weapons in the air, flanked the procession as it snaked through the streets of Beit Hanoun, where yesterday'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, and held 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.

Speaking at a business conference in Tel Aviv, Olmert reiterated his readiness to hold a summit with Abbas, a moderate leader locked in a power struggle with the governing Islamist militant group Hamas.

''He will be surprised, when he will sit with me at how far we are prepared to go. I can offer him a lot,'' said Olmert.

The Israeli leader did not elaborate. Abbas has been seeking a substantial release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in return for an Israeli soldier seized by militants in June.

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