Palestinians Mourn Blast Victims

Thousands of Palestinians flocked Thursday to the funeral of four fighters killed by an explosion in the southern Gaza Strip.

Angry mourners marched through the town of Rafah on the border with Egypt, vowing to pursue the struggle to end Israel’s 34-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Dozens of masked gunmen fired rifles in the air as Palestinians carried the bodies, covered with white sheets because of mutilation from the explosion. People marching alongside shouted anti-Israel slogans and burned Israeli and U.S. flags.

The four men killed Wednesday belonged to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and to a recently formed informal armed group, the Popular Resistance Committees.

Palestinian officials blamed their deaths on what they said was a remote-controlled bomb planted in an Israeli buffer zone between the Palestinian- and Egyptian-ruled parts of Rafah.

The Israeli army said it knew nothing of the incident.

A Palestinian policeman who gave his name as Younis said at the blast scene that Israel had planted the bomb because the gunmen had previously shot at Israeli tanks.

The area where the blast occurred has seen frequent clashes between gunmen and Israeli troops since the latest Palestinian revolt against occupation began in September. Gunmen said they had spotted two more suspicious objects there Thursday.

A Popular Resistance leaflet threatened that the group would retaliate by firing mortars at Israeli targets, though Arafat has banned mortar attacks from areas populated by civilians.