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RAMALLAH (News Agencies) - At least 100 Palestinians were hurt when Israeli troops fired on stone-throwing demonstrators in "day of rage" protests yesterday, the seventh straight day of bloody unrest in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which threatened to hold up the transfer of three Jerusalem-area villages to Palestinian control. The violence comes as Israelis and the Palestinians continue working on a final peace treaty to settle the long-standing issues that have plagued the region for decades. Issues like the nature of a Palestinian state, the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are some of the major thoughts that are being worked out, with the two sides setting a September deadline for a final treaty. The Palestinians want to set up a state with traditionally Arab east Jerusalem as the capital. They insist that refugees who fled Israel when it was created in 1948 have the right to return. Meanwhile, demonstrators have continued their protests, which began a week ago, marking al-Nakba or the "catastrophe" of the creation of the state of Israel in May 1948. Along with that, the protestors have been involved in clashes with Israeli security forces during prisoner solidarity protests in which they hurled rocks at the Israeli forces. Several of the protesters have been injured by rubber bullets that were fired by the Israeli forces, with the most severe blow being the death of Issa Adel Karakra, 29. Karakra was shot in the head by a rubber bullet and was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. Regardless of the gross disadvantage, the Palestinian protests have continued unabated. In Hebron, about 1,500 demonstrators marched toward an Israeli army checkpoint in the Israeli-controlled area yesterday. Israeli troops stood on rooftops and behind cement blocks, firing rubber bullets at hundreds of stone throwers. Ahmed Qawasmeh, 22, who has a brother in jail and would do whatever it took to win his release said, "We were waiting for this moment to show our anger and our disappointment over the peace process." In the West Bank town of Nablus, live bullets shot by Israeli soldiers injured two Palestinians. Four others were injured in Nablus by steel-coated rubber bullets, including one man who was shot in the eye. In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, approximately 400 Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers guarding a crossing point into Israel. A group of six Israeli jeeps in compact formation tried to hold off about two-dozen Palestinian youths, who took cover behind barrels just 20 yards from the Israeli soldiers. Thirty Palestinians were hurt, medical officials said, who also reported that an Israeli soldier was injured slightly by stones in Tulkarem and a second soldier suffered slight injuries near Bethlehem. Similar scenes could be seen in Jenin and the Gaza Strip according to official reports. However, the protesters defiantly stood firm throughout, wanting their voices to be heard. In the end, the total was five dead and some 600 Palestinians wounded in the weeklong clashes with Israeli security forces. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority on Friday blamed each other for the wave of violence, the worst since 1998 when nine Palestinians were killed in Nakba clashes with Israeli troops and around 200 were wounded. In September 1996 around 80 people were killed, mostly Palestinians, in rioting and gun battles after Israel opened a controversial tunnel near Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. |
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