GAZA
CITY, November 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A two-year-old
Palestinian, who was among four children wounded by Israeli fire on a
house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Monday, November 11, died of
his injuries.
Palestinian
medics said Naser Mechal was shot in his home along with three other
young family members by automatic weapons fire from an Israeli tank,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
After
a period of relative calm, the Israeli fire claimed eight Palestinian
lives in 24 hours and a Palestinian bomber killed one person in Israel.
In
the West Bank town of Nablus, a senior leader of the Islamic resistance
group Hamas and another man were killed when their car exploded in the
west of the city. The blast, which also injured two bystanders, was
blamed on Israel.
The
Hamas leader was identified as Hamed Sadr, 35, whose nephew killed
himself and three Israeli soldiers in a bomb attack on the Jewish
settlement of Ariel last week.
Witnesses
said a drone was over flying the area when the explosion blew the car,
which had yellow Israeli license plates, to pieces.
A
Palestinian security official accused Israel of "booby trapping the
car and blowing it up by remote control."
Chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat denounced the explosion as "a
war crime reflecting Israel's desire to carry on its assassinations
which are aimed at destroying the Palestinian people."
A
few hours later, a Palestinian activist blew himself up in the Israeli
town of Kfar Saba, on the northeastern rim of metropolitan Tel Aviv and
only five kilometers (three miles) from the reoccupied Palestinian town
of Qalqilya.
The
activist killed one other person and injured around a dozen, according
to rescue services quoted by Israeli television.
In
the Gaza Strip earlier, five Palestinians were killed.
Three
were shot dead overnight by Israeli forces on the border between the
Gaza Strip and southern Israel, an army spokesman told AFP Monday.
The
three men entered a restricted zone near the border fence between the
Gaza Strip and the Israeli kibbutz, or collective village, of Nahal Oz
and Israeli forces opened fire, the spokesman claimed.
The
bodies were found later when the army sent out a patrol to investigate,
although no weapons were discovered with them, he said.
None
of the men were identified by the army, which handed their bodies over
to Palestinian medical authorities.
Another
two men were killed in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, which lies
on the border with Egypt.
One
was shot dead late Sunday, November 10, after Israeli troops saw him
behaving suspiciously and entering the prohibited security zone around a
roadblock manned by Israeli soldiers. The man's identity was not
released.
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Rubble
caused by rockets fired by Israeli military choppers in Gaza
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A
second man was shot in the town later Monday, in circumstances which
were not clear, hospital sources said. Ahmed Abdelkadr Othman, 24, was
shot in the head and died shortly afterwards.
Four
other Palestinians, including a five-year-old boy and an 18-year-old
girl, were injured Monday by Israeli fire in Rafah, medics said.
Another
man from Khan Yunis, just north of Rafah, who was shot by Israeli troops
Saturday, November 9, died of his wounds Monday, Palestinian medics
said.
Two
Israeli helicopters also fired three rockets at an unknown target in an
industrial zone in Nablus Monday evening, Palestinian witnesses said.
The
choppers fired at an area in the east of the city, which was quickly
closed off by the army, the witnesses said.
There
were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
The
latest deaths came as the new right-wing coalition of Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon faced its first test in parliament, with just 55
deputies in the 120-seat parliament following Labor's defection last
week in a budget row.
But
the government defeated three censure motions after Sharon won backing
from the ultra-nationalist National Union bloc, with seven members.
Sharon's
new line-up includes as Defense Minister former military chief of staff
Shaul Mofaz, who was in charge of the army during its invasion of the
West Bank towns of Nablus and Jenin between April and June.
Amnesty
International Monday accused the army of committing war crimes in that
operation, saying it killed civilians, tortured prisoners, used
civilians as human shields, destroyed homes and blocked humanitarian aid
to Palestinians.
It
called for "a full, thorough, transparent and impartial
investigation into all allegations of violations of international human
rights and humanitarian law."
The
army rejected the charges of war crimes, saying it was acting in
self-defense by attacking "terrorist infrastructure" ...
implanted in the heart of the Palestinian population which served as a
shield."
"While
attacking, the army took care not to hit the civilian population,"
it said
