US film star Jane Fonda has joined pacifists protesting against Israel's 35-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Fonda, a veteran of Vietnam anti-war campaigns, demonstrated with the group Women In Black, who protest about the occupation every Friday in Jerusalem.

She stayed with the banner-wielding demonstrators for about 10 minutes, standing in heavy rain outside the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the west of the disputed city.

Fonda will visit Yasser Arafat's headquarters

The 64-year-old actress is on a week-long trip to the region and plans to attend meetings of Israeli and Palestinian women organised by a global movement to stop violence against women.

The movement, called V-Day, was inspired by the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues and the woman who wrote it, Eve Ensler, who is also in Israel.

Fonda and Ensler visited Jewish and Arab doctors and patients at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital on Thursday after a performance of selected passages from Monologues, put on by a group of Israeli women.

Earlier, Fonda visited Israelis recovering from chronic injuries at the hospital's rehabilitation centre.

She appeared moved when she met 23-year-old Sharon Maman, who suffered brain damage after two suicide bombers blew up simultaneously in Jerusalem on 1 December, 2001.

On Saturday, Fonda is due to visit the West Bank town of Ramallah to see a physical rehabilitation centre, a Palestinian refugee camp and Yasser Arafat's headquarters complex, most of which Israeli troops have destroyed.