Four Palestinians Killed by Israelis in Gaza
Pakistan Times Foreign Desk Report

RAMALLAH (West Bank}: Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in two separate shootings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday, one of them a local militant leader, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

In the deadliest violence in the West Bank since Yasser Arafat died 10 days ago, three Palestinians were killed late Sunday in a shoot-out between Israeli border guards and militants, Palestinian medical sources said.

Among them was 23-year-old Muhammad Ghassan Leftawi, a local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade whom the Israeli military had been hunting for months, said Palestinian sources.

Checkpoint Attacked

The three men opened fire at a border-guard checkpoint manned by officers in plain clothes in the village of Betunia, near Ramallah. One of the guards was wounded in the leg, a military spokesman said.

Leftawi had been holed up in Arafat's Ramallah compound along with other suspected militants wanted by Israel.

The identity of the two other victims was not immediately clear.

Earlier, a Palestinian gunman was shot dead by soldiers in the central Gaza Strip near the Kissufim trade checkpoint, the Israeli military said.

Khalil Muhammad Shahata, 20, was killed after he and another activist opened fire on a car of Jewish settlers, said the armed wings of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Islamic Jihad.

Shahata belonged to the PFLP's Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades and his fellow attacker to Jihad's Al-Quds Brigade, they said in a joint statement.

One dies of Injuries

Meanwhile, a Palestinian wounded Saturday by Israeli fire near the Netzarim settlement in the central Gaza Strip, died of his injuries, said a Palestinian medical source, naming the victim as Riad Hassan Tammus, 53.

The latest deaths bring to 4,585 the number of people killed since the beginning of the Palestinian intifada or uprising in September 2000, including 3,550 Palestinians and 961 Israelis.

Two Palestinians, one of them a boy, were also wounded when Israeli soldiers opened fire in the Rafah border area in southern Gaza, medical sources said.

Fire on West Bank

Another nine Palestinians were wounded when Israeli troops opened fire in the southern West Bank towards a group of 600 demonstrators protesting against the separation barrier Israel is building, medics and witnesses said.

Troops fired rubber bullets and tear gas after protestors threw stones at a construction site just outside Beit Ulla village, northwest of Hebron, witnesses said.

Israel insists the barrier is vital to stop attacks while the Palestinians say its route, which often juts deep into the West Bank, is little more than a landgrab and an attempt to preempt the borders of their future state.●