HIGHLIGHTS: Jewish Settlers Rampage Through Hebron after Funeral|||Powell to Meet a Palestinian Delegation in Washington next week||Jesse Jackson Meets Peres in Tel Aviv at the Start of a Peace Mission||Sharaa Blasts U.S. Middle East Policy|| STORY: Hezbollah fighters fired anti-aircraft weapons at Israeli warplanes flying over southern Lebanon Sunday, Hezbollah and Lebanese security officials said.

In a statement issued in Beirut, the Lebanese Resistance group said its air defense units confronted "Israeli enemy planes that violated Lebanese airspace" over south Lebanon on two occasions Sunday.

An Israeli occupation army spokesman in Jerusalem said the jets were inside Israeli airspace when Hezbollah fired on the planes and would not say whether the planes crossed the border later.

Lebanese security officials said the planes entered Lebanese air space and broke the sound barrier over the capital Beirut. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the anti-aircraft fire, saying no damage was caused.

Israeli reconnaissance flights over Lebanon have been common since Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.

Lebanon has complained to the United Nations, which has accused Israel of violating Lebanese airspace

JEWISH SETTLERS RAMPAGE THROUGH HEBRON AFTER FUNERAL

Arrogant Jewish settlers returning from the funeral of an Israeli killed in a Palestinian resistance attack entered the Palestinian area of Hebron shooting at Palestinian houses, taking one over and burning another.

Amid the shooting, the settlers took over a three-storey Palestinian house in the area, confining the Abu Nagiba al-Sharbati family to a single room, while a second Palestinian house of similar size was torched and badly damaged, Palestinian eye-witnesses said Sunday.

The burned house, a three-storey building belonging to the Abu Samir al-Sharbati family, also contained a large collection of antiquities.

It was not clear who was in the house when it was set alight.

Settlers were also shooting and throwing stones at Palestinian houses near the Jewish enclave of Avraham Avinu, following the funeral of an Israeli soldier and resident of the area who was killed Friday in a Palestinian ambush.

ISRAELI PALESTINIAN TALKS TO RESUME DESPITE BLOODSHED

Middle East talks looked set to resume between Israeli and Palestinian finance ministers despite a new increase in violence following a deadly Israeli air strike in Gaza last week.

A Palestinian official said Sunday that Israeli Finance Minister Silvan Shalom and his recently appointed Palestinian counterpart Salam Fayad would meet Monday, despite two Palestinian attacks which killed five settlers in the wake of the Gaza strike.

The meeting was expected to focus on Israel's agreement to unblock part of the 430 million dollars of Palestinian customs duties and tax it has frozen since the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, broke out 22 months ago.

Israel had refused to unblock any of the funds until a US-supervised monitoring body was set up to ensure none of it made its way to Resistance groups, but the Jewish state dropped the condition in a conciliatory gesture after the Gaza Massacre earned it worldwide rebukes.

POWELL TO MEET A PALESTINIAN DELEGATION NEXT WEEK

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he will meet a Palestinian delegation in Washington next month to discuss security reforms.

Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, Powell said the meeting would take place on his return on August 4 from an eight-nation Asian tour.

"I will be discussing with them security transformation, the work of the task force we announced in New York," Powell said Sunday.

He referred to meetings held earlier this month of senior officials from the international diplomatic "quartet" on the Middle East -- the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- at which a task force to assist Palestinian reforms was set up.

In addition to the task force, the United States presented to the quartet the outline of a plan to radically revamp the Palestinian security apparatus and Powell said he would be presenting that plan in the near future to both Israel and the Palestinians.

He met with an Israeli delegation last week.

JESSE JACKSON MEETS PERES AT START OF PEACE MISSION

US Reverend Jesse Jackson met Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at the start of a "bridge-building" mission to try to help Israelis and Palestinians end their bitter 22-month conflict.

Peres told Jackson Israel was doing all it could to ease the situation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living under curfew after the army re-occupied almost the entire West Bank on June 19 after deadly Palestinian suicide bombings.

But he said that "only when the Palestinian Authority begins to take action against terrorism will it be possible to renew political negotiations," his office said in a statement after the meeting in Tel Aviv.

Jackson arrived Saturday at the head of a multi-denominational delegation of religious leaders that will spend five days in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and meet with officials including Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and possibly with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

SHARAA BLASTS U.S. MIDDLE EAST POLICY

Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara stepped up Syrian criticism of US Middle East policy, slamming its "biased and blind" support of Israel.

"We are not satisfied with the biased and blind (policies) of the United States in support of Israel that attacks the Palestinians and threatens stability in the region," the foreign minister told the official Syrian media from Algiers on Sunday.

On Wednesday, Shara blasted Washington for "remaining silent" over the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "who, under the pretext of battling terrorism, massacres Palestinian civilians."

He was speaking two days after an Israeli F-16 warplane bombed a crowded Gaza City neighborhood, killing 13 civilians as well as the military leader of the Islamic movement Hamas, in an attack that was widely condemned.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinians pray in Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza City Sunday July 28 2002, standing by the body of Anwar Mohammed Fayad, 25, who died of his head wounds after being shot by Israeli troops on July 23 . (AP Photo/Vadim Ghir