As the funerals of the three young victims, two women aged 21 and 23 and a 14-year-old boy, were taking place, Israel tightened security across the country ahead of the Sukkot religious holiday which begins at sundown.

In the occupied West Bank, recently dismantled roadblocks reappeared while private Palestinian cars were banned from travelling on inter-city roads in the aftermath of Sunday’s shooting near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc.

The shooting was the first since the completion of Israel’s historic pullout from the Gaza Strip last month, and is an embarrassment for moderate Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas who is due to hold talks with US President George W. Bush in Washington this week.

Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim said the attack showed the Palestinian Authority was doing nothing to rein in militant groups and that it was impossible to make progress in the peace process in such an environment.

Israeli and Palestinian officials had been due to hold a series of meetings in the coming days to prepare the ground for a summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas after his return from Washington.

Boim explicitly ruled out any early prospect of Israel handing over responsibility for security in parts of the West Bank, expected to be a chief demand of the Palestinians.

“In the current situation, we cannot move forward with the political process,” said Boim.

“I do not think that in this situation we can transfer the towns to the Palestinians. They are not exerting any control.”

Defence ministry officials had earlier announced the decision to bar private cars from inter-city roads. Sunday’s drive-by shootings took place by a junction on the road linking the southern West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Hebron.

The Israeli restrictions in the West Bank and the decision to freeze contacts were roundly condemned by Palestinian officials who warned the moves would prove counter-productive.

“This will only add fuel to the fire. We call on the Israelis to immediately stop these moves and to allow the Palestinian Authority to do its job,” prime minister Ahmed Qorei told reporters.

Planning minister Ghassan Khatib said Sunday’s attack was designed to weaken Abbas and the decision to freeze contacts would only strengthen hardliners.

The shooting was “a blow to the Israelis on the personal level but also a blow to the Palestinians in a political sense which weakens Abu Mazen (Abbas) and the Palestinian leadership”, Khatib, a senior negotiator with Israel, told AFP.

“Therefore the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships must work together to stop these operations and revive the peace process and not just do something against the majority of the Palestinians.”

Abbas, who is due to meet Bush on Thursday, held talks Monday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

Speaking after the meeting, Mubarak’s spokesman Suleiman Awad urged a swift resumption of dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“We hear these things from time to time, we hear about discussions being broken off but both sides always resume dialogue very quickly because it is the only way to overcome obstacles and take the peace process forward,” he said.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical offshoot of Abbas’s Fatah movement which is meant to be observing a truce.