Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian policeman and wounded 22 other people on Friday morning, as occupation forces attacked PA-controlled areas. Meanwhile, a Palestinian child died when a stray Israeli tank shell he was handling exploded.
Some 23 other people were injured in the clashes, including an Israeli soldier, said AFP.
Said Abdel Khader Al Akra was shot in the stomach while trading fire with Israeli soldiers in an autonomous Palestinian section of Ramallah occupied by Israel Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian boy, Bassem Al Mobasher, was killed when an Israeli tank shell he was handling exploded in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Khan Yunis, Palestinian security sources told the agency.
Israeli tanks had fired the shell into the camp earlier in the day, the sources said.
The two deaths bring to 887 the toll for the year-old Palestinian uprising against 34 years of military occupation, including 687 Palestinians and 178 Israelis.
Twenty-two Palestinians were wounded, five seriously, during fierce gun battles after Israel mounted an incursion overnight deep into the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, official Palestinian radio reported.
And an Israeli soldier was shot in the stomach and seriously injured while stationed near Rachel's Tomb at the entrance to the autonomous Palestinian town, an Israeli spokesman was quoted by the agency as saying.
A defense ministry official vowed that the Israeli forces would stay in Bethlehem "as long as necessary" to complete their mission.
The two sides traded fire Friday morning in the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem and neighboring Beit Jala and Beit Sahour.
Twenty Israeli tanks penetrated three kilometers (two miles) into the autonomous Palestinian town of Bethlehem early Friday, witnesses told AFP.
The tanks rolled in from two directions, Jabel Hindata and Rachel's Tomb, before a column of armored cars surrounded a refugee camp. Israeli troops were also said to have occupied Bethlehem's Paradise hotel.
Al Jazeera satellite channel reported that the incursion was from three directions, leaving the three towns and the adjacent villages and refugee camps as closed military zones.
The Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported that Israeli helicopters were hovering over the area while about 20 tanks were advancing into the PA-controlled area.
"These incursions had been decided upon following Palestinians firing of mortars towards Gilo," an Israeli military spokesman said, referring to the Jewish settlement on the fringe of occupied Jerusalem.
Gilo has often been on the frontline in the year-old Intifada, or uprising, with Israeli troops storming neighboring Beit Jala in August to halt Palestinian attacks on the settlement.
The overnight Israeli military operation followed an Israeli helicopter attack on Bethlehem late Thursday during which three members of the Fateh resistance movement were killed.
One of the victims, Atef Abayat, had been sought by Israel in connection with the murder in September of a female Jewish settler in the Bethlehem area.
Abayat was the Fateh leader in Bethlehem, and said to be the leader of the party’s military wing, Al Aqsa Brigades.
That attack came just a day after the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) assassinated right-wing Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi in retaliation for the killing of its leader in August.
The Palestinian Authority moved to outlaw groups that Israel wants to see behind bars, arresting a dozen suspects but warning that Israeli reprisals risked causing it to lose all control over the situation.
Abu Dhabi satellite channel said that the PFLP’s Abu Ali Mustapha Group, which claimed responsibility for the assassination, was declared outlawed by the PA.
The group is named after the movement’s leader, who was assassinated in August by Israel helicopters.
Meanwhile, world powers pleaded with both sides to exercise restraint as the region again teetered on the brink of chaos, threatening Western efforts to woo Arab states into backing US-led air strikes on Afghanistan – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
