Israeli gunfire from the border town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killed an Egyptian soldier Friday night, Egyptian security officials were quoted as saying, in the first incident if its kind in Egypt since the nine-month-old Palestinian uprising began and the 1979 peace treaty with Israel was signed, said reports.
Abu Dhabi satellite channel said the unidentified soldier was killed while Israeli troops were chasing and firing on Palestinian Intifada activists in the area.
The Palestinian side of Rafah, a city divided by the Gaza-Egypt border, has been a hotspot for Israeli-Palestinian clashes. Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers have exchanged fire many times near the border since a June 13 ceasefire agreement.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, CNN reports that Palestinians have killed over 112 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 458 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International, 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
