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Four Palestinians Killed, Dozens Injured In West Bank And Gaza
by Adel Zanoun
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Despite renewed diplomatic attempts to end the carnage, Israeli shells and bullets on Saturday killed four Palestinians and injured dozens more, the latest victims in eight weeks of violence gripping the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The fresh fighting, which wore down by nightfall, raised the death toll to 282, after thousands of Palestinians gathered in various parts of the territories to bury victims of the Intifada, or uprising, against Israel.
In the Gaza Strip, 13-year-old Taysir Abu Alarraj was killed by shrapnel from Israeli shells fired on the Khan Yunis refugee camp near the Neve Dekalim Jewish settlement. The shelling, which hit several houses, was triggered by a gunfight between Israeli troops and armed Palestinians.
A high-ranking Israeli officer had been killed by Palestinian fire from the camp on Friday.
Hospital officials said Saturday's gunbattle and shelling left 30 Palestinians wounded, three seriously. Among the injured was an ambulance nurse.
Violence also ripped through the West Bank, where Israeli troops killed three Palestinian stone-throwers.
Twenty-one year-old Amjad Azmi Mohammed was shot dead in the chest by Israeli soldiers at the northern entrance to Jenin, hospital officials said.
Just outside the town, in the village of Arraba, 18-year-old Abdel Munin Ezzedin died after Israeli soldiers shot him in the head, officials said.
In Nablus, after funerals were held for two Palestinians killed the day before, another stone-thrower, 30 year-year-old Fuad Dweiakat, was shot dead by Israeli troops, officials at the el-Itihad hospital said.
Saturday's bloodletting came a day after an Israeli army major was shot and killed by bullets fired from the Khan Yunis refugee camp, making him the highest-ranking soldier killed since the conflict broke out in late September.
Another soldier was killed on Thursday when an explosion ripped through a joint liaison office near Neve Dekalim, prompting Israel to temporarily sever low-level security cooperation on the ground.
Despite the Jewish death toll, most of the victims of the latest Intifida against Israel have been Palestinians.
In Nablus, some 10,000 angry Palestinians on Saturday joined the funeral procession for two brothers killed in an Israeli shelling of a nearby village the day before.
Crowds shouted "Death to Barak" and "Death to Sharon," referring to Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Israel's hawkish opposition leader Ariel Sharon, as they carried the bodies of Samir and Nahed Adel Amr through the streets.
Masked armed men mingled with the mourners, who brandished Palestinian and Islamic flags and photographs of the victims they said were members of the militia wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
In the Gaza Strip, some 3,000 people marched through the town of Rafah near the border with Egypt during the funeral for Ziad Khalil Abu Jazar, 22, killed by Israeli troops on Friday.
A total of seven people were killed in Friday's bloodletting, including the Israeli army officer and a civilian army employee, with another two Palestinians dying of wounds suffered in previous clashes.
The violence was triggered by Sharon's controversial visit to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied east Jerusalem, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, on September 28th.
At the Karni crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Israel, minor skirmishes flared Saturday between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Other incidents were highlighted in the West Bank, where Palestinians hurled stones at a bus carrying Jewish children near the Alfi Menashe settlement bloc. No one was hurt.
In Jericho, a device exploded near a bridge but no injuries were reported. Overnight, the army arrested an individual who had infiltrated the area from neighboring Jordan.
Palestinians and Israeli soldiers also traded fire near the Jewish settlement of Ofra in the northern West Bank, where a soldier driving a jeep was lightly wounded, military sources said.
The violence came amid fresh diplomatic attempts by Russia to restore calm in the region.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered a telephone conversation between Arafat, who was visiting him, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the first such contact in three weeks.
Arafat and Barak pledged to study the details of a new Russian initiative to end the two-month spiral of violence in the Middle East, the Kremlin said.
Upbeat Kremlin officials declined to reveal the precise details of the telephone diplomacy, but Barak's office said immediately afterwards that Arafat had declared himself ready to work for peace.
But on Saturday, Arafat told journalists during a visit to a hospital in Amman where wounded Palestinians were being treated, "It is not a Russian [peace] initiative but it is an attempt to calm the situation."
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