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Nahla Aqel killed on Eid day
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GAZA
STRIP, December 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Israeli
occupation forces shot dead a Palestinian mother and wounded her three
children in the southern Gaza Strip while they were on their way to
neighbors for an Eidul-Fitr holiday meal.
Late
Saturday, December 7, Nahla Aqel, 41, was shot dead in the head and her
two sons, Tamer, 3, and Ali, 9, and her daughter, Niveen, 17, were
wounded in the shooting in an impoverished area near the Egyptian
border, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Palestinian medical sources as
saying.
Israeli
forces posted at the nearby Jewish colonial settlement, Rafah Yam, had
ordered the family to go home before they started firing at them.
An
Israeli military source, which AFP did not identify, claimed the Israeli
forces had allegedly identified a group of armed Palestinians in a
closed military area near the Rafah settlement.
"Troops
opened fire on the group with light weapons," a spokeswoman
claimed, adding it was allegedly not clear whether the soldiers had hit
any of their targets or whether the woman and her children were hit
"accidentally".
Chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat reacted in anger, slamming the murder
as another example of Israel's "state terrorism." He called
upon Washington to condemn the attack.
Meanwhile,
the Israeli occupation army said one of its patrols on the border with
its northern neighbor was hit by a roadside explosion Sunday, December
8.
"Two
soldiers were wounded, one seriously and another moderately, when a
roadside bomb exploded by their vehicle during a patrol along Israel's
border with Lebanon," a spokesman said.
The
attack near the Israeli village of Zarit was claimed by a previously
unknown group in a phone call to AFP in Beirut.
Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz later met with senior army officials to
discuss possible retaliation, army radio said.
Late
Sunday, another two Israeli soldiers were injured when a blast rocked
their jeep and they came under gunfire near the West Bank town of
Tulkarem in an attack claimed by the Islamic resistance movement, Jihad.