GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The killing of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl in a Gaza schoolyard Monday prompted Islamic militants to fire mortar shells at Jewish settlements and endangered an unofficial cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians.
The renewed violence overshadowed a meeting between top Israeli and Palestinian security officials who worked Monday to arrange a handover of several West Bank towns to Palestinian control. Israeli officials said the security meeting ended with no accord on a handover.
Although the circumstances of Norhan Deeb's death were unclear, the violence strained the recent atmosphere of goodwill between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
The girl was killed in the courtyard of a U.N. school in the Rafah refugee camp near the Egyptian border, a frequent flashpoint of violence between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen.
Palestinian witnesses said the gunfire came from a nearby Israeli military position along the border.
The Israeli military said it checked the claims and found two cases in which soldiers opened fire, but neither was in the area where the girl was shot. "According to our examination, the girl apparently was not shot by Israeli army gunfire," the military spokesman's office said.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Palestinian revelers had been shooting into the air in the area, celebrating their return from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Residents, however, said there were no such celebrations, and Dr. Ali Moussa, the physician who treated the girl, said she was hit by a bullet directly in the face. He said initial reports by paramedics that she had been killed by tank fire were wrong.
Witnesses said the girl was shot in the head as she and other pupils lined up in the schoolyard for afternoon assembly.
"I didn't hear any shooting. Suddenly, I heard Norhan screaming. Then she fell down," said Aysha Khateeb, a classmate who was wounded in the hand. "I looked at my hand and saw blood."
She spoke to The Associated Press from her hospital bed and burst into tears as the covered body of her classmate was wheeled by on a stretcher.
Johan Eriksson, a spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, said U.N. officials weren't able to definitively identify the source of the gunfire, but that all signs pointed to the Israeli troops.
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