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Baby Palestinian Girl Injured
BETHLEHEM, West Bank, April 8 (News Agencies) - Six Palestinians were injured Sunday near Bethlehem, including an 18-month-old baby girl, following a day of sporadic clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army had fired upon stone-throwers with live and rubber-coated steel bullets in the village of al-Khader by Bethlehem, medical sources said.
The infant, Amani Ghuneim, was found near her home close to the site of the incident with a wound from a rubber-coated steel bullet. Medical sources said her condition was stable.
Seperately, Palestinians fired mortars at two Israeli military positions overnight, an Israeli army spokesman said.
Palestinians fired a shell on an army position at the Jewish settlement bloc Gush Katif in the southern Gaza Strip. They also launched two shells at a military post in the northern Gaza Strip by the Erez border crossing with Israel, the spokesman said.
The army said it also responded to Palestinian fire on two military camps near the Palestinian villages of Sanur and Zababida in the northern West Bank and on a military position near the Psagot settlement.
An Arab man suspected of assisting Israel in the West Bank was killed at a street stand in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, witnesses said.
The man was shot dead by three hooded gunmen who attacked him at the stand in downtown Tulkarem, the witnesses said.
A previously unknown group called Unit 77, which claims to be part of the el-Asifa wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the killing.
The victim, who was in his 40s and whose identity was not immediately available, lived with his family in Tulkarem and held an Israeli identity card, according to witnesses.
Israeli military radio said the man was an Israeli Arab who lived in Hadera, northeast of Tel Aviv.
In another incident, the Israeli army said a bomb was dismantled in the divided West Bank town of Hebron.
During the morning, on the Jewish holiday of Passover, the army also lifted a curfew imposed on the city, the spokesman said.
Hebron, where 400 extremist Jewish settlers live inside a city of 120,000 Palestinians, has been under regular curfew since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian clashes in late September.
Tensions have been even higher than usual since late March, when a sniper, allegedly a Palestinian, shot dead a 10- month- old Jewish girl. Settlers have since gone on a rampage against Palestinian targets.
In Gaza City, close to 1,000 Palestinians marched to the local U.N. office, vowing to continue their half-year uprising against occupation and demanding international protection against Israel's crackdown.
Mohammed Dahlan, head of preventative security in the Gaza Strip, told the crowd that the demonstration was "proof of our determination to continue our resistance so long as Israeli aggression continues."
Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September, 469 people have died, most of whom have been Palestinians.
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