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Israeli Soldiers Kill Palestinian In West Bank
HEBRON (News Agencies) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank town of Hebron Friday, a news photographer witnessed and the Israeli army confirmed.
The photographer said Israeli soldiers, responding to the sound of an explosion, entered a Hebron restaurant and shot a man in the head. The photographer added that the soldiers then dragged away the man's lifeless body, leaving a wide trail of blood.
Other witnesses recounted a similar series of events, in which the soldiers heard the sound of the explosion, began to shoot, entered the restaurant, shot a man and took his body.
The Israeli army confirmed that its soldiers shot and killed the man, who they said was carrying a pistol, after people standing behind him threw a bomb and shot at the soldiers.
The identity of the dead man was not immediately clear.
The death brought to 376 the number of people killed since the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, began on September 28th, most of them Palestinians.
It came amid relatively minor clashes in Hebron following marches denouncing Palestinian security coordination with Israel and the return to peace negotiations.
Four Palestinians were injured in those clashes, three of them lightly, when Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets at stone-throwers.
The Hebron clashes broke out after some 2,000 Palestinians marched to denounce resuming security coordination, which has been discussed by Israeli and Palestinian officials for nearly a week.
"Security coordination spoils the blood of the martyrs and the Intifada!" shouted many of demonstrators, some of whom carried photographs of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"Stop the negotiations!" cheered others.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas at a large group of Palestinians who threw stones at an Israeli military checkpoint at the northern edge of the Arab-run city.
Medical officials said 12 Palestinians were injured in Ramallah by rubber-coated bullets.
The Ramallah clashes erupted after another march attended by some 3,000 Palestinians who called for the more than three-month-long Intifada to continue.
"The refugees' right of return cannot be compromised!" shouted demonstrators, referring to a peace proposal by U.S. President Bill Clinton that would bar Palestinian refugees from returning to Israel.
Marwan Barghouthi, a senior activist from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's faction Fatah and a sponsor of the Intifada, said: "Any meetings here and there will not stop our people's Intifada."
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