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Palestinian Killed by Israeli Troops in West Bank Raid
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in a raid on an autonomous village West Bank early Monday, a Palestinian hospital source said.
The dead man was identified as Mohammed Rihan, 25, an activist in the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that Rihan was killed in an exchange of fire with elite Israeli army troops, during an Israeli raid in the Palestinian autonomous village of Tell, near Nablus.
Two other Palestinians were arrested during the raid. This followed the killing of one Israeli and the wounding of another by a Palestinian near the village of Kfar Hess, northeast of Tel Aviv and close to the demarcation line with the West Bank.
According to eyewitnesses in Tell, villagers were rounded up and taken to a local school for ID checks, and at least one home was demolished.
Rihan was accused by Israel of participating in the killing three years ago of two Jewish settlers near Nablus, a few kilometers (miles) north of Tell, Israeli public radio said.
The Israeli incursion came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the Israeli armed forces were delaying their pullback from two Palestinian areas because of warnings of attacks.
Although Israeli troops have withdrawn from four Palestinian towns, they remain in Tulkarm and Jenin. Israeli forces, however, still surround major cities and towns under full Palestinian control.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian boy died Monday from gunshot wounds to the head he suffered in an exchange of fire last week between gunmen and Israeli soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital officials said.
Ahmad Abu Mustafa, 12, was hit during the clash in the flashpoint Khan Yunis area, said an official at the al-Shifa hospital.
His death raises to 969 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation since last September, including 758 Palestinians, mostly children and women, and 189 Israelis.
And in New York, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during a flurry of diplomacy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, reported BBC's online service.
After the two meetings, Powell reported back to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, European Union foreign policy adviser Javier Solana and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
A short statement issued after their meeting said they would continue working with the Israelis and Palestinians to help implement a peace agreement.
This, they said, should be based on recommendations set out by George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator who has called for a ceasefire, a cooling-off period and then a return to peace negotiations.
One official said the Mitchell Report was the only road map to peace in the Middle East and the challenge was to find a way of encouraging the Israelis and Palestinians to start following this route.
In a speech to the General Assembly on Sunday, Arafat praised U.S. President George W Bush's speech Saturday, in which he spoke of the idea of two states, Israel and Palestine, living in peace.
The fact that Bush talked openly of a Palestinian state has triggered an energetic new round of diplomacy.
Arafat said it represented a significant step in the path towards ending the conflict and the establishment of peace in the Middle East.
But he also called for renewed international engagement in the peace process and the deployment of international monitors - something Israel and the United States have so far opposed.
Positive steps in the long route to a Middle East peace settlement are almost imperceptible at the moment.
"The current Israeli Government continues the aggression against the Palestinian people," Arafat said.
But he nevertheless sees the decision by many of the speakers at the U.N. General Assembly to refer publicly to the idea of a Palestinian state as a sign of progress.
Palestinian delegates, however, have not concealed their disappointment that Bush refused to meet them.
But they welcomed what they see as the growing international acceptance that they are entitled to an independent state.
Arafat, in a speech that dealt at great length with the recent history of the Palestinian struggle, emphasized that much more was still needed.
He urged the international community to re-engage itself in the Middle East peace process and he called for all nations to support human rights.
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