The Israeli army launched an assault into the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank Tuesday morning, widening its attacks in the Palestinian Authority's "autonomous" zone of Bethlehem-Beit Jala, said reports.
A member of the armed wing of the Fateh faction and one of his Force 17 bodyguards were wounded during an exchange of fire with the soldiers occupying part of the camp, Palestinian sources told AFP.
Tanks and infantry units penetrated inside the camp, which is adjacent to the Palestinian locality of Beit Jala, facing the Jewish settlement of Gilo in occupied east Jerusalem.
The Israeli army claimed its forces were shot at by Palestinian gunmen from Aida near Rachel's Tomb, and that its troops returned fire, according to Haaretz newspaper.
"We will prove to Israelis that invading Beit Jala doesn't mean that we will not continue to shoot at Gilo," a Fateh official told AFP.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened two weeks ago to storm Beit Jala if Gilo was shot at again, following heavy fighting in the area.
Earlier, a Palestinian policeman was killed during a battle between resistance fighters and Israeli occupation troops who seized "dominant positions" in the autonomous Palestinian town of Beit Jala.
AFP and Haaretz newspaper identified the Palestinian as Mohammad Samur, 23.
He died about an hour after being hit in the chest during the attack.
According to the Palestinian news agency, WAFA, 15 other Palestinians were injured, one of them a journalist.
Beit Jala is on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Bethlehem, and the Israeli army said it moved in, shortly after midnight, following gunfire there.
"Our forces have occupied dominant positions in Beit Jala and will maintain a presence there to prevent further firing," an army spokesman said in a statement, cited by Haaretz.
"Our forces will operate for a limited time to achieve their objectives," the statement said.
The army's aim was to "protect innocent civilians and foreign residents as well as the holy sites," in Bethlehem, the statement continued.
At the same time, Israeli bulldozers razed 14 Palestinian houses and damaged another 20 in an overnight attack inside the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said Tuesday.
The bulldozers were accompanied by Israeli tanks into the south of the Gaza Strip close to Rafah.
Twenty-two Palestinians were wounded in the attack, four of them critically, officials told AFP.
Infantry units and armored vehicles operated in Rafah near the Egyptian border, in front of an Israeli fort, the sources added.
Four Israeli bulldozers, protected by tanks, penetrated around 100 meters (yards) into the autonomous zone of Rafah, razing Palestinian houses.
A military spokesman claimed that the operation came after a series of attacks against the Israeli army and attempts to smuggle arms from Egypt through tunnels.
The Israeli army is currently digging a trench along the border to prevent infiltration, and the Palestinians are attempting to prevent the work with repeated hand grenade attacks, a military spokesman told the agency.
The exchanges of fire and attacks around Bethlehem came just hours after Israel assassinated the secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Abu Ali Mustapha, in an attack that the PA said marked the end of peace hopes and the beginning of "all-out war."
The killing of Mustapha was quickly followed by the murder of a Jewish settler in a revenge attack, said reports.
Israeli parachutists, protected by three tanks and armored cars, first penetrated the village of Rahmeh, in Bethlehem's autonomous eastern sector, after breaking through Palestinian barriers, witnesses told AFP.
Israeli helicopters circled the area while in the Palestinian refugee camps in the area, militants used loudspeakers to call for armed resistance against the Israeli forces.
AFP's latest tally of those killed in the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation stands at 572 Palestinians and 154 Israelis, a ratio of around four to one. Israeli troops, according to Amnesty International, have shot dead about 100 children.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society, meanwhile, reports well over 15,000 Palestinians wounded – Albawaba.com
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