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Death And Demonstrations In Palestinian Territories
JERUSALEM, April 30 (News Agencies) - The Palestinian territories were awash in blood Monday as the death toll for the past seven months soared past 500 and an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement defied an order from Arafat to disband.
Two bomb blasts rocked the Gaza Strip, killing three Palestinians.
And mortar shells were fired on settlements in the southern Gaza Strip for the second time Arafat ordered Saturday to dissolve the body in his own Fatah faction which has claimed responsibility for such attacks.
More than 400 Palestinians, mostly Fatah members who belong to armed bands accused of shooting mortars and setting off bomb blasts at Israeli targets, demonstrated in the southern Gaza Strip against a Palestinian Authority order to dissolve.
There were also members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Shouts abounded against security cooperation and peace negotiations with Israel.
Demonstrators chanted: "The blood of the martyrs is not for sale" and "No to traitors and treason, yes to the armed struggle!"
In defiance of the order, two mortar shells were fired Monday night against the Gadit settlement in the southern Gaza Strip, causing no injuries, a military source said. Nobody had yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
More mortar shells were fired Monday night, targeting Israeli army positions near the Neve Dekalim and Ganei Tal Jewish settlements, but no injuries were reported, Israeli public radio said.
Israeli tanks attacked with shells and automatic gunfire in direction of the Khan Yunis town and Palestinian refugee camp, injuring five by shrapnel and one with a bullet, witnesses and hospital sources said.
In Gaza City, a Hamas member and another person were killed when a car bomb blast destroyed two houses, Palestinian police said.
Nineteen-year-old Hamas activist Hamdi Madhoun's body was found in the ruins of one of the homes, police said.
According to a preliminary report by the police, the blast was caused by the explosion of a booby-trapped car in the garage of Mohammed Abu Khaled, a member of the Islamic resistance Hamas movement.
The Shifa hospital admitted Khaled and Abdel Karim Madhoun, another Hamas activist, in addition to Khaled's wife and one of their children. The mother and child were lightly injured, sources said.
The deaths lifted the toll in the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, to 502: 414 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs, 74 other Israelis and one German.
Late Monday night, a powerful explosion ripped apart an apartment building in the West bank city of Ramallah, killing an eight-year-old girl and an eighteen-year-old boy, while leaving three more injured and another three missing, Palestinian security sources said.
It was not was not immediately clear what caused the blast.
The blast rocked the residential neighborhood of Ain Misbah and ripped apart the building with four apartments, the sources said.
The source accused the Israeli army of setting off the blast in an attempt to kill Palestinian activists involved in the seven-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, the sources said.
Earlier, a Palestinian man was killed and another one injured when an explosive charge blew up near the southern Gaza Strip Jewish settlement of Rafah Yam, an Israeli military spokesman said.
The charge, which was said to have been a small one, had been placed under a pickup truck carrying Palestinian farm laborers, Israeli public radio reported.
According to the army, the attack targeted the owner of the truck, an Israeli businessman who was not aboard when the explosion occurred.
Palestinian security services in Gaza City said the victim, Wael Abu M'hissin, 20, was a laborer loading crates of vegetables on the truck when the bomb went off from beneath the vehicle.
At the scene, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer swore revenge and declared the "war continues."
Overnight, Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank shot dead a Palestinian man who was wanted by Israeli authorities, Israeli public radio said.
Adnan Awdeh, 32, was said to be a former collaborator with Israel.
The report said he was killed after fleeing his home in Hibla, near Qalqilya, during a raid by Israeli coast guards. His pursuers fired a warning shot before killing him, it added.
Also in the West Bank, a female Jewish settler, holding her baby, was stabbed several times in the Ganim settlement near the northern town of Nablus, military sources said.
She was lightly injured, but the army had sealed the area to conduct a manhunt.
A nail bomb was also defused near the walls of the Old City in east Jerusalem.
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