Israeli troops killed two Palestinians and wounded more than 80 on Saturday as the uprising against 34 years of military occupation continued.
A Palestinian from the Hamas resistance movement was killed in the West Bank town of Tulkarem by a remote-controlled car bomb, Palestinian security sources said.
They said 27-year-old Fawaz Badran was killed when a car he was walking by exploded.
According to AFP, Hamas blamed Israel and said his death was another "targeted killing," the Israeli euphemism for assassinations. Palestinians say the Israelis have killed around 30 people on the Jewish state's "wanted" list since the latest Palestinian uprising against Israel began in late September.
Earlier, a Palestinian who was preparing to throw a grenade at an Israeli patrol was shot dead by Israeli troops on Friday in the north of the Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said.
Public radio was quoted by the agency as saying that a young Palestinian woman who was on the scene with the unidentified man, close to the Alai Sinai settlement, managed to escape.
The spokesman said army experts defused an explosive device which was also found at the site.
The Jerusalem Post also reported that Palestinian leaders have accused Israel of kidnapping two activists near Nablus last night.
The men seized were a security officer and a Hamas member, according to the Palestinians.
They say Israeli agents took the men from their vehicle, reported Israel Radio.
Earlier Friday, the Israeli army launched a pre-dawn operation in a Palestinian-controlled area of Hebron on Friday, destroying one Palestinian target and leaving 17 wounded, Palestinian security and hospital sources said, quoted by the agency.
Troops backed by armored vehicles destroyed an outpost of Force 17, the elite Palestinian guard unit, as well as a Palestinian checkpoint in Hebron, sources said.
Three Force 17 members were wounded in that attack, said the report.
Fourteen other Palestinians were wounded in a hail of Israeli shell and machinegun fire in several sectors of the flashpoint town in the southern West Bank.
Power to the city was cut during the operation.
Al Jazeera.net reported that 63 more were treated for injuries from overnight shelling.
Meanwhile, the agency said that a Jewish settler who was shot by Palestinians on Thursday near Hebron had died of his woundss, citing Israeli army radio on Friday.
The deceased was from the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba close to Hebron, and was a member of the settlement's local council, the report said.
The death brought to 32 the number of people killed -- 20 Palestinians and 12 Israelis -- since a would-be US-brokered ceasefire went into effect in June 13.
On Thursday, a Palestinian policeman was killed and seven others were wounded Thursday when Israel bombarded the West Bank city of Nablus in "retaliation" for ambushes that wounded four Jewish settlers.
Israel unleashed tank and machinegun fire on Palestinian police posts soon after the attacks, killing 22-year-old Mohammad Ata Abu Fayyadh as other confrontations raged across the region.
The Israeli army said that it had entered Palestinian controlled Area A near Nablus, taking control of a hill that overlooked the site of a Palestinian ambush, and that tanks had shelled a Palestinian preventive security outpost in the area, destroying it, said Haaretz newspaper.
The Israeli army hit Nablus after Jewish settler Erez Shmulyan, 26, was shot in the head at close range by Palestinians reportedly disguised in Israeli army uniforms near the West Bank settlement of Bar Harha close to Nablus.
His wife and baby daughter, who were in the car with him, were lightly injured, said Israeli reports.
The military wing of Fateh movement, Al Aqsa Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to Al Jazeera satellite TV channel.
Another settler was critically wounded Thursday in a drive-by shooting near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron, settler sources told AFP.
A Palestinian passerby was also lightly wounded in the same attack, said the agency.
Al Jazeera reported that Israeli troops had imposed a total blockade on Hawara village in southern Nablus and also shelled a nearby village, Kufu Qallil.
In Gaza, Israeli tanks shelled Khan Yunis city earlier in the day, destroying several Palestinian houses, said WAFA.
There were no reports of casualties.
Since the fall 2000 outbreak of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, the international media has reported that Palestinians have killed over 123 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and over 504 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International's report months ago, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded, and over 520 killed.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
