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Day Of Rage Sees 10 Dead And Total Blockade Of West Bank Towns
JERUSALEM (AFP) - One of the worst days of violence in more than 10 weeks of Palestinian-Israeli violence saw 10 people killed and the Israeli army move to seal off West Bank towns in Palestinian-controlled areas.
And as the day drew to an end, there were more reports of exchanges of gunfire, and of Israeli rockets and tank shells being fired at Palestinian neighborhoods.
The move to blockade the 'Zone A' towns (under full control of the Palestinian Authority) was decided upon "following the escalation of shooting and violence over the last few days," an army statement said.
"With the exception of humanitarian cases, no entry or exit from Zone A in the West Bank will be authorized," it added.
Zone A is entirely under Palestinian control. Zone B is under Palestinian civilian and Israeli military control, while Zone C is under exclusive Israeli control.
And violence flared again in the Gaza Strip late Friday, when the Israeli army fired rockets and shells at the Palestinian area of al-Makahen near the Jewish settlement of Gush Katif in the south, a Palestinian source said.
The Israeli fire came after a large explosion occurred on the road leading to Gush Katif as a military jeep was going past, the source added.
A military spokesman in Jerusalem confirmed that there had been an explosion but could not give any details.
There were also Palestinian reports of exchanges of fire near the Kfar Darom settlement in the center of the Gaza Strip, and Israeli shells damaging two Palestinian houses in the Rafah refugee camp on the border with Egypt.
Earlier, the explosion of violence claimed the lives of seven Palestinians and three Israelis during the first Palestinian “day of rage” marking the anniversary of the start of the first Intifada in 1987.
The killings raised the death toll to 316 people, mostly Palestinians, since unrest broke out in late September and further blackened hopes for peacemaking in the war-scarred region.
In one attack in the West Bank town of Jenin, five Palestinians - four policemen and one civilian - were ripped apart by shelling from Israeli tanks on a Palestinian security checkpoint, Palestinian medical and security officials said.
Israeli troops fired the shells "without warning" on the checkpoint at the northern entrance of Jenin, the city's governor Zouheir Manasr said.
The Israeli army confirmed it had shelled a Palestinian target in the city.
Further west, in Jericho, an Israeli was killed by Palestinian gunmen in a car along a bypass road, Israeli public radio said, without identifying the victim.
Two other Israelis, both settlers, were killed in another roadside attack near the West Bank town of Hebron.
The victims there were Rina Didursky, a 39-year-old teacher and mother of five, along with Eliahu Ben Ami, 41, who was driving the car that came under fire near the flashpoint town, hospital officials said.
Some 400 extremist Jewish settlers live in armed enclaves in Hebron among a total Palestinian population of some 120,000.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak swiftly denounced the attack.
"These cowardly attacks against civilians will not stop us from fighting violence and terrorism," said a statement released by Barak's office.
"As we have shown in the past, these odious assassins who commit such acts will not go unpunished," Barak said.
In Jerusalem's Old City, where some 3,000 police had braced for unrest following Palestinian calls for a surge in the uprising, clashes broke out near a main mosque compound following weekly prayers for the Muslim month of Ramadan.
Ammar Michni, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, was declared clinically dead at a Jerusalem hospital after being shot in the head by Israeli police, hospital officials said.
At least a dozen other Palestinians, many of them stone-throwers, were injured by live bullets during the violence, which began near the al-Aqsa mosque and later spread to the streets.
The violence lasted for hours in an area near Via Dolorosa, the route, in Christianity, Isa (Jesus) is said to have walked to the site of his crucifixion.
Furious Palestinians, some with facial, arm and leg injuries, pressed their bloodied hands onto the walls of ancient homes in the holy city.
Palestinians have designated Fridays as a standing "day of rage" during the Intifida, since clashes broke out at the mosque compound in late September.
The clashes were triggered by a provocative visit to the disputed holy site by Israel's hawkish Likud party opposition leader Ariel Sharon on September 28th.
Elsewhere, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, 18-year-old Moatazz Azmi Ismail was shot dead by Israeli soldiers after prayers, Palestinian police said.
General Abu Bakr Thabet, commander of the Palestinian police in Bethlehem, called the killing a "cold-blooded crime."
The spiral of violence between Israelis and Palestinians has prompted international calls for an U.N. protection or observer force to the territories.
The Palestinians have repeatedly called for such a force, but Israel objects to the idea on the grounds that it would "internationalize" the conflict.
Meanwhile, Israel announced Friday that an international fact-finding mission due to investigate the causes of the violence would arrive in the region on December 11th.
The mission, to be led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, was set up under the unsigned Sharm el-Sheik agreements of October 17th.
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