TEL
AVIV, November 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least two
people were killed, and more than 20 injured, some seriously, in an
explosion Monday, November 4, in a shopping mall in Kfar Sava,
northeast of Tel Aviv.
According
to al-Jazeera Satellite Station, the blast resulted when a
Palestinian resistance activist blew himself up, killing an Israeli
and wounding dozens.
Israeli
rescue services said the blast occurred at the Arim shopping mall,
seriously injuring four people who were evacuated by ambulance,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Israeli
private television said the attack was a Palestinian bombing
operation.
Kfar
Saba is five kilometers (three miles) from the Palestinian town of
Qalqilya, on the boundary between the West Bank and Israel.
According
to Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Magen David Adom (MDA) official
Doron Kotler said he did not see any fatalities at the scene of the
blast, and that all of the injured had been evacuated to hospitals in
the area.
MDA
spokesman Yeruha Mendola said the four seriously injured had been
evacuated to Beilinson and Meir hospitals.
Israel
Radio reported that the blast occurred in an electrical store.
The
blast followed a bloody 24 hours in the Palestinian Intifada against
the Israeli occupation, that claimed eight lives on the Palestinian
side. Also, it followed a rocket attack by Israeli military
helicopters in Nablus.
Two
Israeli helicopters fired three rockets at an unknown target in an
industrial zone in Nablus Monday, Palestinian witnesses said.
The
choppers fired at an area in the east of the city, which was quickly
closed off by the army, the witnesses said.
There
were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
However,
seven Palestinians were killed late Sunday and Monday, November 3 and
4, and another died of wounds sustained over the weekend, officials
said.
In
Nablus, a senior military leader of the Islamic resistance Hamas group
and another man were killed when their car exploded in the west of the
city. The blast, which also injured two bystanders, was blamed on
Israel.
The
Hamas leader was identified as Hamed Sadr, 35, whose nephew killed
himself and three Israeli soldiers in a bomb attack on the Jewish
settlement of Ariel last week.
Witnesses
said a drone was over flying the area at the time of the explosion,
which blew the car, with yellow Israeli license plates, to pieces.
A
Palestinian security official accused Israel of "booby trapping
the car and blowing it up by remote control."
Chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat denounced the explosion as "a
war crime reflecting Israel's desire to carry on its assassinations
which are aimed at destroying the Palestinian people."
In
the Gaza Strip, five Palestinians were killed.
Three
were shot dead overnight by Israeli forces on the border between the
Gaza Strip and southern Israel, an army spokesman told AFP Monday.
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Latest
Israeli rockets fired on a civilian car in
Nablus
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The
three men entered a restricted zone near the border fence between the
Gaza Strip and the Israeli kibbutz, or collective village, of Nahal Oz
and Israeli forces opened fire, the spokesman said.
The
bodies were found later when the army sent out a patrol to
investigate, although no weapons were discovered with them, he said.
None
of the men were identified by the army, which handed their bodies over
to Palestinian medical authorities.
Another
two men were killed in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, which
lies on the border with Egypt.
One
was shot dead late Sunday after Israeli troops claimed seeing him
behaving suspiciously and entering the prohibited security zone around
a roadblock manned by Israeli soldiers. The man's identity was not
released.
A
second man was shot in the town later Monday, in circumstances which
were not clear, hospital sources said. Ahmed Abdelkadr Othman, 24, was
shot in the head and died shortly afterwards.
Four
other Palestinians, including a five-year-old boy and an 18-year-old
girl, were injured Monday by Israeli fire in Rafah, medics said.
Another
man from Khan Yunis, just north of Rafah, who was shot by Israeli
troops on Saturday, November 2, died of his wounds Monday, Palestinian
medics said.
The
latest deaths came as rights group Amnesty International accused
Israel of committing war crimes during its invasion of the West Bank
towns of Nablus and Jenin between April and June 2002.
Amnesty
said that the army killed civilians, tortured prisoners, used
civilians as human shields, destroyed homes and blocked humanitarian
aid to Palestinians.
It
called for "a full, thorough, transparent and impartial
investigation into all allegations of violations of international
human rights and humanitarian law.".
