Aisha Obeid, the daughter of 95-year-old Fatima Obeid, kisses her mother’s body

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, December 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – As two Palestinian resistance fighters were killed Wednesday, December 4 in an exchange of fire with an Israeli military unit near Al-Khalil (Hebron) in the south of the West Bank, the Israeli army has come under attack for the killing of a 95-year-old woman.

The soldiers were carrying out a search when the two Palestinians hidden in a cave opened fire in their direction, the Israeli sources claimed.

They returned fire, killing the Palestinians, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted the sources as saying.

The two latest deaths bring to 2,741 the number of people killed since the beginning of the Palestinian intifada on September 28, 2000, including 2,013 Palestinians and 678 Israelis.

On late Tuesday, December 3, Israeli occupation forces killed a 95-year-old Palestinian woman.

Israeli troops fired on her car at an entrance to the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian medical sources said.

Fatmah Mohammed Obeid  became the oldest victim of the 26-month-old cycle of Israeli violence.

“We condemn the crime committed by the Israeli army against the ederly Fatmah Obeid in Ramallah,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP Tuesday.

“This is a war crime which comes after many others committed by the Israeli army ... We hold the Israeli government responsible for these crimes and their continuation,” he said.

Erakat likened Obeid’s killing to that of a 72-year-old man found dead Sunday, December 1, under the rubble of his home in the northern Gaza Strip after the army had dynamited the building where the elderly man’s son, an Islamic Jihad activist, also lived.

Three other Palestinians, including two women, were injured in the Ramallah shooting, the sources said.

The shooting, witnessed by an AFP correspondent, took place near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, northeast of Ramallah, as Palestinians were queuing to enter the West Bank city where the curfew had been lifted by the army.

Israeli army jeeps had blocked the road where hundreds of Palestinians were waiting to enter Ramallah, the correspondent said.

Israeli troops abducted eight young men and ordered the crowd to disperse and use another checkpoint to enter the city, he said.

Moments later, they opened fire, hitting the stationary car in which Obeid was sitting with several bullets, he added. He saw two bullet wounds in Obeid’s body.

Israeli military sources said the vehicle was moving, claiming soldiers only aimed at the tires.

According to the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper, an Israeli soldier is expected to face disciplinary measures after he shot and killed Obeid.

According to an initial Israeli investigation, the soldier operated contrary to rules of engagement, with the cab in which the woman was travelling posing no danger to him or other soldiers.

A group of conscripts from the armored corps arrived Tuesday afternoon to disperse the throngs, as well as a group of taxis that routinely waits at the scene for passengers. The dispersion involved incidents, including one in which the soldiers claimed a taxi tried to run them down. The driver and passenger were arrested.

According to Israeli TV Channel Two, the soldier fired 17 bullets at the car and kept shooting while running, a particularly inaccurate procedure.

In another development, the United States demanded that Israel investigate reports that its troops destroyed some 500 tons of U.N. food aid during a weekend incursion in the Gaza Strip.

“We are deeply troubled by reports that Israeli forces destroyed a U.N. World Food Program food warehouse in Gaza,” deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said Tuesday.

“We think it’s critical that the Israelis investigate the circumstances of that incident and take immediate steps to ensure that civilians and humanitarian facilities are not harmed,” he told reporters.

According to the World Food Program, more than 500 tons of food aid stored in a warehouse in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip was destroyed during an incursion by Israeli forces Saturday night backed by tanks and helicopters.

The 413 tons of wheat flour, 107 tons of rice and 17 tons of vegetable oil worth 270,000 dollars had been intended for destitute Palestinians.

The food, clearly marked as WFP property, was to be distributed by the Palestinian Ministry of Social Affairs to 41,300 people in the Gaza Strip.

U.N. Chief Kofi Annan on Monday urged Israel to investigate the incident, which has been decried by the Palestinians and the Arab League among others.

Arab League Chief Amr Moussa branded as “barbaric” the Israeli demolition of the WFP warehouse.

“This barbaric behavior aims at starving the Palestinian people on which the Israeli occupation forces already impose a harsh siege,” Moussa said in a statement.

“Israel ignores international legality, and the Israeli army knew perfectly well the nature of the building it demolished” Saturday night, he said.

He pointed out that it was “the second time in a few days that Israel attacked international aid organizations, after it killed a worker for UNRWA,” the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), in late November.

He was referring to Briton Iain Hook, who was shot dead in the northern West Bank refugee camp of Jenin.  

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