Funeral for Israel soldier killed in Hebron

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STORY: Hundreds of sympathizers and soldiers joined a funeral procession on Monday of an Israeli soldier shot dead in the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday.

The soldier was the second Israeli serviceman killed since Friday by suspected Palestinian gunmen as tensions rise in the occupied territory despite a resumption of stalled U.S.-brokered peace talks in July.

The attack occurred as the city, venerated as the burial site of the biblical patriarch Abraham, was packed with Jewish visitors for a week-long Jewish festival.

The Israeli military said the soldier had died in a hospital in Jerusalem after a suspected sniper shot him in the neck while he was on patrol near the Tomb of Patriarchs, a site holy to Muslims and Jews in the tinderbox city of Hebron.

Hebron has long been a flashpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians seek statehood in the West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war.