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| The
latest victim of Israeli aggression: Noor al-Hindi
|
Additional
reporting by Mustafa Al Sawaf, IOL Palestine Correspondent
GAZA
CITY, July 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Three Palestinians,
including a woman and her two-year-old daughter were killed in Gaza
City Saturday, as the Israeli army continued its policy of killing,
destroying houses and imposing crippling curfews on the Palestinians
people, news agencies reported Saturday.
Randa
al-Hindi, 44, and her daughter, Noor, were riding in a taxi, on the
Gaza-Khan Yunis road, when an Israeli tank opened fire without
warning. The woman and her daughter did not make it to the hospital
alive, according to Dr. Ahmed Rabeh, spokesman for Al-Aqsa hospital in
Deir Balah, where the bodies were taken, reported Israeli daily
newspaper Ha’aretz.
Israel Radio reported that the incident occurred close to the Netzarim
settlement.
Another
car was also hit in the incident, but it was unclear whether anyone in
it was injured. The circumstances in which the army opened fire were
not initially clear, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Israeli
occupation army said it was checking the incident.
Earlier,
Palestinian medical and security sources told AFP a Palestinian man
was killed when Israeli troops opened fire on houses in the southern
Gaza Strip.
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| Noor’s
mother
|
Khamees
Shurab, 45, died after being hit in the head, chest and leg when
Israeli troops opened heavy machinegun fire on a group of houses in
the eastern outskirts of Khan Yunis, the sources said.
Shurab
was in his house when troops began firing from an area close to the
Jewish settlement of Morag, they said, adding that a number of other
houses in the area were lightly damaged in the incident. His body was
taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.
The
Israeli army, again, said it was not aware of any such incidents in
the area.
Meanwhile,
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tried to justify Israel’s
"temporary" reoccupation of the Palestinian territories,
claiming it was “part of the fight against terrorism”. He also
ruled out further talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat,
according to an interview Saturday with the French daily newspaper
Liberation, AFP reported.
Ignoring
that Israel’s occupation of Palestinians’ land is the main cause
of bloodshed in the area, Peres said, "the main problem today is
to prevent infiltration of terrorists into Israel. If the Palestinians
do not take charge of that it is up to the Israelis to do so.
"Arafat
alone was to blame for losing American backing, and I don't think you
can go against what the Americans want. Of course it is not up to us
to appoint the Palestinian leaders but we can choose who we talk
to".
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| An
Israeli soldier rests under the tank he used to kill a
Palestinian woman and her two-year-old daughter
|
Peres
even went further to name persons he was prepared to consider as
Arafat replacement. "I myself am prepared to talk to people like
Abu Mazen or Abu Ala," he went on, ruling out any contact with
the Palestinian Authority President.
Mahmud
Abbas (alias Abu Mazen), number two in the Palestine Liberation
Organization, is often put forward as Arafat's likely successor. The
speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Ahmed Qorei (Abu Ala), is one
of the main Palestinian negotiators.
"If
we accept U.S. President George W. Bush's vision (of two states, with
creation of a Palestinian state within three years, and thus
coexistence) it is necessary to sit down with some of the Palestinian
leaders and see how to help them to remove the suspicions of
corruption or of financing terrorism that weigh on the Palestinian
Authority, and especially how to ensure their security and also
ours," said the Labor Party Minister.
