Girl Shot by Jewish Settlers, Palestinians Say
Jewish settlers shot dead a Palestinian girl during a rampage in the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday after the funeral of an Israeli soldier killed in a roadside ambush, Palestinian witnesses said.

Palestinian medical sources said nine Palestinians were wounded by gunfire.

The violence flared as the United States said it planned talks with Palestinian officials on security reforms and Israel pledged to ease hardships on Palestinians in the West Bank.

Palestinian witnesses said about 100 settlers attacked Palestinian houses in the old city and eastern Hebron, setting fires, breaking doors and windows and firing at houses.

The dead girl, Neveen Jamjoum, was shot while sitting just inside the doorway of her house, her mother said. Hospital officials said she was 13 after medical sources initially said she was eight years old.

Israeli police said Palestinians provoked the settlers.

On Friday, Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler couple, one of their 10 children and the soldier in an ambush near the West Bank city of Hebron.

That ambush followed pledges by Palestinian militants to avenge an internationally condemned Israeli air strike on Gaza last week that killed 15 people, including nine children and Salah Shehada, head of the military wing of the Hamas group. Witnesses in Hebron said settlers attacked in the flash-point city after the funeral of the soldier, a settler from the area.

``The (settlers) attacked the area and started shooting at the house and then we threw stones at them so they would leave. They shot the girl in the head and me in my leg,'' a Palestinian man, who did not give his name, said from his hospital bed.

Israel Radio said at least 15 police were hurt in scuffles with settlers. Citing local sources, the radio also said settlers had set fire to a Palestinian home.

Some 400 settlers live in heavily-guarded enclaves in Hebron, home to more than 100,000 Palestinians.

Palestinians said that Hebron's Palestinian residents were confined in their homes under Israeli army-imposed curfew.
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