JERUSALEM , PALESTINE

Zinni met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah for the second time since arriving on Thursday.

The former U.S. Marine Corps general was due to meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later in the day at the Israeli leader's farm in the Negev Desert, again for the second time in two days.

In a statement after meeting Arafat on Friday, Zinni described his meetings on both sides as "positive."
"I sensed everyone is committed to get out of this terrible situation," Zinni said in Ramallah, Arafat's West Bank power base, hours after Israeli tanks rumbled out of the city, leaving a trail of crushed cars and toppled utility poles in their wake.

He said he expected cease-fire talks to begin in earnest within three days, after preliminary talks on "mechanisms" to end fighting.

Gun battles in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Hebron late on Friday underscored the difficulties Zinni faces after a week of some of the fiercest Arab-Israeli fighting in decades.

Israel's withdrawal from Ramallah and two other West Bank cities, announced shortly before Zinni flew in on Thursday, drew praise from President Bush who spoke of a need to "establish the conditions for eventual peace."

PALESTINIANS BURY MOTHER, FOUR CHILDREN

Around 40,000 mourners marched through al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza for the funeral of a Palestinian mother, her three children and a nephew killed on Friday when a land mine exploded under a donkey cart in which they were riding.

Palestinians and Israel blamed each other for the explosion that killed Zaina al-Awawda, 44, the two girls and two boys.

"America is Israel" and "Zinni, your negotiations won't work," a group of teenagers chanted as they burned a U.S. flag.