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12
Palestinians Killed in Occupied Territories
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Israeli
soldiers shoot at unarmed Palestinians |
AL
KHALIL (Hebron), April 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - At least
12 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation forces in several
incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the course of Thursday
morning, April 25, as its tanks staged an overnight incursion into the
southern West Bank town of Al Khalil (Hebron).
Israeli
troops killed four Palestinians trying to infiltrate the Gaza Strip
settlement of Kfar Darom in the early hours of Thursday morning
alleging the four were armed.
A
few hours later, a Palestinian policeman was killed during an Israeli
incursion into the Gaza Strip village of Dir el Balah.
Palestinian
medical sources said the man, Mohamad Abdeen, 52, had been killed and
two others wounded. They said all were members of a Palestinian
security service.
Israeli
occupation troops also killed five Palestinian policemen early
Thursday in the West Bank village of Beit Kakhil northwest of Hebron.
The incident occurred while an Israeli unit was arresting senior Fatah
member, Muatez Aymouni. The Israeli military spokesman reported that
the five policemen "had opened fire on the troops from a passing
car," and that all five had been killed when the soldiers
returned fire.
Early
Thursday, a Palestinian approached an Israeli roadblock close to the
Jewish Gush Etzion settlement bloc near Jerusalem in a car, blowing it
up as he tried to escape on foot, the Israeli occupation military
said. Soldiers shot and killed him.
Also
early Thursday, Israeli occupation troops and tanks launched a
four-hour incursion into Hebron, residents said, AFP reported.
Occupation
soldiers fired at Palestinians as 20 tanks and armored personnel
carriers penetrated around one kilometer (half a mile) inside Hebron's
northwest sector, near the university, witnesses said.
A
Palestinian man was shot dead during the incursion, Palestinian
hospital sources said. They identified him as Ahmad Bashir, 25, a
member of Force 17, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's personal
guard.
In
a separate incident, an occupation army spokesman said an undercover
Israeli unit shot dead one Palestinian policeman and wounded another
in a car near Hebron.
Palestinian
witnesses said about 10 tanks and 10 armored vehicles briefly entered
the city on Thursday. They added Israeli occupation forces fired
machine guns in all directions. Ahmed Bashir, a member of the Force
17, an elite Palestinian security unit, was killed.
Israel
Radio reported that an elite unit operated overnight in the West Bank
town of Hebron, in a bid to trap a senior wanted resistance activist,
but that the man appeared to have escaped. Four Palestinians were
abducted in this raid.
And
near Jerusalem, a Palestinian man was shot dead at an Israeli
checkpoint as he allegedly tried to escape from his car.
The
man, who had been stopped at the roadblock on the road between
Jerusalem and Bethlehem to the south, jumped out of his car and tried
to escape, an Israeli occupation army official claimed.
Israeli
occupation army sources reported that two Palestinians who were
wounded Wednesday afternoon had died.
The
two men were identified as Raed El-Khatib, a member of the Palestinian
national security service, and Isaam Jawubra, 20, a member of the
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's resistance
Fatah faction.
The
spate of attacks came as a third day of talks was set to begin in
Bethlehem on ending the three-week old standoff between Israeli
occupation troops and Palestinians holed up inside the Church of the
Nativity.
More
than 200 Palestinians, and another 30 or so priests and monks have
been trapped since April 2 on the site where Christians believe Jesus
was born.
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