Haaretz
Cheshvan 16, 5765
Israel
Defense Forces soldiers shot dead a 12-year-old Palestinian boy on
Saturday during confrontations with protesters in a refugee camp in the
West Bank town of Jenin, medics said.
Palestinian witnesses said
the soldiers had come under a hail of stones thrown from rooftops as they
were searching for wanted militants in the camp.
The troops opened
fire killing Ibrahim Mohammed Ikmeil, 12, medics at a hospital in Jenin
said.
An Israeli military source said the soldiers had responded
after coming under fire, but Palestinians said the protesters were only
throwing stones.
The violence erupted amid fears of a power vacuum
in the Palestinian territories with ailing Palestinian President Yasser
Arafat absent for the first time in a decade, after being flown to Paris
on Friday for medical treatment.
The military source said soldiers
had opened fire during protests by hundreds of Palestinians against a raid
in the northern West Bank camp, but could not confirm whether anyone was
shot.
Along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, east of the city
of Rafah, troops shot and wounded a Palestinian man who was hunting wild
birds, hospital staff said Saturday. They said the 42-year-old man was
shot in the back and was still carrying several birds when he was brought
to the emergency room.
Israeli military officials said soldiers
spotted four men in a prohibited zone adjacent to the border fence who
were observing troop movements through binoculars. The soldiers opened
fire, apparently hitting two men.
In a separate incident,
Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile and automatic gunfire at IDF
troops stationed near Rafah on Saturday. There were no injuries
reported.
Security guard shot by Palestinians near West Bank
settlement
A security guard was lightly wounded early Saturday when
two armed Palestinians shot at a gas station near the West Bank settlement
of Psagot, Army Radio reported.
According to the report, the guard
sustained light gunshot wounds to the arm and was rushed to Shaare Zedek
Medical center in Jerusalem.
Army Radio said the guard, though
wounded, managed to shoot at his attackers, but they overpowered him, took
his personal firearm and fled the scene.
Police and Israel Defense
Forces troops were searching for the gunmen.
IDF nabs suspected
would-be bomber
IDF troops operating in the West Bank before dawn
Friday arrested a woman suspected of planning to carry out a suicide
bombing.
She was arrested at the Ein Beit al-Ma refugee camp near
Nablus.
In addition, IDF forces detained 17 other wanted
Palestinians in overnight operations.
Two people were arrested
near Jenin, one was nabbed near Nablus, five were apprehended in the
vicinity of Bethlehem, six in Hizme, south of Ramallah, and three were
arrested in Beit Omar, north of Hebron.
Givati soldier killed in
Gaza mortar attack laid to rest
Sergeant Michael Chizik, 21, of
Tiberias was killed Thursday and six other soldiers from the Givati
Brigade's Shaked battalion were wounded in a mortar shell attack on an
Israel Defense Forces outpost at the settlement of Morag in the southern
Gaza Strip.
Chizik was buried in the military section of the
Tiberias cemetery at noon Friday.
Also Thursday, the IDF killed an
8-year-old Palestinian girl who was on her way to school in Khan Yunis.
According to a preliminary IDF inquiry, mortar shells were fired before
dawn, under cover of fog, from the Tufah neighborhood west of Khan Yunis
toward IDF outposts in Gush Katif, west of the town.
Following
intelligence warnings about additional mortar fire at the outposts and
settlements, IDF troops in the area opened small arms fire, defined as
"warning fire," in the direction of areas from which Palestinians
regularly fire mortar shells. Apparently, one of the bullets hit the
child. The IDF said it is investigating the incident. Witnesses said that
the girl, Rania Iyad Aram, was hit by machine gun fire from an IDF outpost
near the neighboring settlement of Ganei Tal.
In the West Bank on
Thursday night, an IDF undercover unit killed two wanted Hamas militants
in Qalqilyah, and troops also shot dead an armed Palestinian in
Jenin.
Around 2:30 P.M. Thursday, the outpost at Morag was attacked
and hit by two mortar shells and fire from sharpshooters from the
direction of Khan Yunis. One shell registered a direct hit on a group of
soldiers at the outpost. Sergeant Michael Chizik received a head wound and
died several hours later. Three other soldiers sustained moderate limb
injuries, a fourth was lightly injured, and two others suffered
shock.
All the casualties were taken to Soroka Medical Center,
Be'er Sheva by ambulance or helicopter.
The IDF responded with an
incursion into Palestinian territory on the Rafah border, uprooting
vegetation that apparently served as cover for the mortar squad. There
were no further casualties in the ensuing exchange of fire. The military
wing of Hamas took responsibility for the mortar shelling.
In a
separate incident in the Rafah region Thursday, Givati soldiers from the
Girit outpost shot and badly wounded a Palestinian marksman after spotting
him near the Tel Sultan neighborhood.
In Qalqilyah on Thursday
night, troops from the undercover Duvdevan unit killed Ibrahim Isa, local
head of the Hamas military wing, along with an accomplice. Isa, a veteran
Hamas activist, was involved in dispatching the suicide bomber who
attacked the Hableh checkpoint about a month ago, injuring two soldiers.
He was also implicated in an attempt to deploy a car bomb. The soldiers
opened fire at the two wanted men, who were armed.
In Jenin, the
Nahal brigade's operation code-named "Noah's Ark," which was launched
Wednesday night, continued to target Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad
networks in the wake of increased terror alerts. On Thursday the troops
arrested a Tanzim activist and a senior local Hamas activist. In a
separate incident, soldiers shot a Palestinian who was carrying a gun. The
man was badly injured, transferred to Israel for medical treatment, but
died shortly thereafter.