GAZA CITY, October 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A second Palestinian boy was killed Wednesday, October 9, by heavy machine-gun fire from Israeli tanks in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, in an incident that left another boy dead and 20 wounded, 10 of them critically, Palestinian medical sources said.

The murdered boys were identified as Mohammed Mussa Ashwar, 15, who was killed in an initial burst of fire, and Ahmed Radwan, 14, who was shot dead in a second burst as an angry crowd of youths pelted the Israeli tanks with stones, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The tanks, guarding bulldozers demolishing Palestinian houses along the Israeli-controlled border, opened fire for no apparent reason in the first instance, said AFP.

There was no previous firing when the shooting broke out from Israeli army positions on the illegal Gush Katif Jewish settlement bloc, just a few hundred yards (meters) from the edge of the Palestinian town and refugee camp.

Tuesday night, Israeli occupation forces gunned down a 12-year-old Palestinian girl in Rafah.

The murder of the two young boys brings the toll of Palestinian dead during the two-year defiant Intifada against Israeli occupation to 1,904, according to AFPl.

Eight people, including four schoolboys, were injured Wednesday when Israeli gunfire ripped through a school and nearby buildings in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis.

Bullets smacked into the Abdel-Khadr elementary school in Khan Yunis, injuring four schoolboys and a member of the school’s kitchen staff, AFP reported, quoting Palestinian security officials.

Twelve-year-old Maysa Abu Zanon was killed Tuesday, October 8

Two more people were hit in their homes, while the eighth injury was to a market vendor.

Khan Yunis was the scene of a major Israeli raid Monday, October 7, that left 16 Palestinians dead and brought sharp criticism of far-right Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who, nevertheless, insisted his raids on Palestinian towns would continue.

The Israeli army also abducted 12 Palestinians in overnight searches across the reoccupied West Bank, Israeli military sources said Wednesday, October 9.

The Israeli army also said it had demolished three Palestinian houses at Salfit. The houses belonged to Maher Pesher, Bilal Abdel Fatah, and Ahmad Khassin Ahmad Maari.

For the first time in weeks, the occupation army lifted the crippling curfew on the whole of the city of Nablus, which has more than 110,000 people living under almost constant lockdown since Israel reoccupied it, and most of the other West Bank cities (with the exception of Jericho prohibited to Jews by their religion) in June.

Sharon faced a rising barometer of U.S. pressure Wednesday over his bloody raids into the Gaza Strip.

Sharon shrugged off U.S. rebukes over Monday’s raid which killed 16 Palestinians, provoking renewed criticism from U.S. President George W. Bush, Israel's main backer, who is trying to calm regional tensions as he drums up support for war in 12-year-sanction-hit Iraq.

The White House said Bush is “deeply concerned” over reports that the increasingly frequent Israeli raids in Gaza have killed civilians and wants Israel to “minimize” such casualties.

Sharon had earlier said his raids would continue, qualifying Monday’s brutal pre-dawn operation as a “success”.

Israeli analysts believe Sharon, whose forces have reoccupied the West Bank for nearly four months, will stage more and larger raids into Gaza’s strongholds, but deem it unlikely he will fully reoccupy the packed and impoverished territory.