Tens of thousands of Palestinians today mourned 18 civilians killed in Gaza by Israeli shelling that Israel's prime minister blamed on a technical failure.
"Killers in Israel, you will never be able to defeat one Palestinian child," said 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 innocent people, said the carnage was the result of 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, Mr Olmert reiterated his readiness to hold a summit with Mr Abbas.
"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 Mr Olmert.
The Israeli leader did not elaborate. Mr Abbas has been seeking a substantial release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in return for an Israeli soldier seized by militants in June.
"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," Mr Awad said.
Palestinian leaders have called yesterday's attack a massacre. Some Hamas lawmakers have threatened that its armed wing would resume suicide attacks against Israel.
The Israeli army said it was targeting rocket launchers using the Beit Hanoun area as a staging ground to fire makeshift missiles at the Jewish state.
After an inquiry into the incident led by a general, Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said in a statement artillery would now only fire at the Gaza Strip on the order of Israel's southern command chief, who is a major-general, or someone more senior.
He did not disclose the findings of the inquiry but said "ranges of safety" for artillery shelling in the territory would be reexamined.
Israeli media reports said an artillery battery's radar had malfunctioned in Wednesday's incident.
Without directly referring to the investigation, Mr Olmert said the artillery shells had 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, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction.
But Damascus-based Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, urged retaliation. Hamas declared a truce in March 2005 that expired at the year-end. It has not carried out suicide bombings in Israel since 2004.
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 Mr 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.