Israeli forces killed four Palestinian fighters in the Nablus area, then mutilated their bodies to the degree that two of them were unidentifiable when the bodies were found, according to Al Jazeera satellite channel.
AFP said, however, that three of the bullet-riddled victims were later identified as Hakkam Tayeh, 22, Faadi Samaana, 25, and Zaher Ismail, 30, while the fourth body, that of Ahmed Fares, 23, was taken away by the Israelis, an official with Yasser Arafat's Fateh movement said on condition he not be identified.
Nablus Governor Mahmoud Al Alul said on Palestinian radio that the incident started when a Palestinian was wounded by Israelis overnight near Beit Ila and the Israeli soldiers opened fire again when one of his comrades tried to help him, killing four Palestinians in all.
Al Jazeera added that the Israelis fired at the ambulances trying to remove the bodies.
An Israeli army spokesman claimed that a resistance movement cell was ambushed while on its way to plant a road-side bomb.
Haaretz quoted Israeli preliminary reports as saying that soldiers from the elite Egoz unit carried out an ambush on the road leading to Mount Eival northeast of Nablus in the West Bank. Members of a Palestinian resistance movement cell approached the area to place an explosive device on the road, and the soldiers opened fire, killing four and apparently wounding a fifth.
The Israeli paper said that many shooting incidents occurred Tuesday night. Prolonged exchanges of fire occurred near Beit Haggai and Hebron in the West Bank. Palestinian gunfire damaged an Israeli car near Ramallah. Palestinian resistance fighters also shot at Israeli army troops near Betunia. There were no injuries in these incidents.
Also on Tuesday night, resistance fighters threw dozens of grenades at an Israeli army post near Rafah in the Gaza Strip. An explosive device also went off near the Netzarim settlement.
In addition, Palestinians fired a mortar shell from the Gaza Strip, which landed inside Israel within the 1967 Green Line border. There were no injuries in any of these incidents.
Palestinian officials say that over 40 political leaders and resistance fighters have been killed under Israel's assassination policy, variously called by the euphemisms "targeted killings," "liquidations," "surgical strikes," and "interception operations."
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 563 Palestinians, and 146 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
Israel’s wounded number in the high hundreds, according to army sources, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society puts the number of Palestinians injured at over 14,000.
Amnesty International reported early this year that almost 100 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli soldiers, nearly all in situations where the occupation troops were under no immediate threat.
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began last September – Albawaba.com
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