Sixteen Palestinians including a television journalist were wounded Friday by Israeli bullets in incidents around the occupied territories, medical sources said.
In the Gaza Strip, eight young Palestinians were injured by Israeli live rounds in a clash at the Karni crossing point with Israel in a clash, medical sources said, said AFP.
Earlier, Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian journalist working with Abu Dhabi satellite television as she was covering damage caused by recent Israeli raids on the southern Gaza Strip, according to hospital sources.
Layla Awda was in a "moderate" condition after being shot in the thigh by a live bullet in the Rafah area near the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, they said.
An Israeli army spokesman said Awda was caught in the crossfire.
"The army is conducting a thorough review of the circumstances behind this incident and expresses its regrets for the journalist's injury," a spokesman said in a statement.
"Journalists put themselves in peril by being among the Palestinian rioters and amid gunfights," he said.
In Abu Dhabi, the network accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists. Layala told her station that she was a target for Israeli soldiers, brushing off the Israeli claims.
An investigation was underway, Israeli sources were quoted by the TV as saying.
Another journalist working for Palestinian television, Mona Akawi, was shot at on Thursday near the Netzarim Jewish settlement south of Gaza City, but the bullet tore her clothing without injuring her, AFP said.
Also in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Israeli army said it defused a major explosive device Friday morning that had been placed by the Kfar Darom settlement.
In the West Bank, four Palestinians were lightly wounded by rubber bullets in Ramallah, where Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones at them, the hospital sources told the agency.
Another dozen demonstrators suffered minor illnesses from tear gas fired by the soldiers at the clash, which followed a demonstration by some 1,000 demonstrators.
The protesters had marched to an Israeli checkpoint from downtown Ramallah, waving Palestinian flags, chanting slogans in support of the half-year-old Palestinian uprising and burning posters representing Israeli settlements and prisons.
South of Ramallah, two Palestinians were injured by live rounds in a clash with Israeli troops at the Kalandia refugee camp, according to medical sources.
A military spokesman confirmed the incident but denied the army used live rounds.
Another Palestinian was injured by Israeli army fire in a clash between soldiers and young Palestinians in the divided West Bank town of Hebron, witnesses were quoted by the agency as saying.
PALESTINIANS DOWNPLAY ISRAEL’S MOVE TO EASE BLOCKADES
Palestinians have said that the Israeli moves Friday to lift roadblocks imposed on Gaza are meant as propaganda and directing the world’s attention off their actual practices in the Palestinian lands, according to Al Jazeera satellite channel.
Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had ordered the army to lift blockades that had effectively cut Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip into three sections, disconnected from each other - after ordering Gaza's main roads cut on Monday in reprisal for mortar fire on Sderot.
Haaretz said that roadblocks that had split Gaza into three parts were lifted at Martyrs’ Junction (Netzarim) and on the Gush Katif-Kisufim road. The cuts had barred travel from the north of Gaza into the center and southern portions of the strip.
Meanwhile, the Israeli security cabinet approved at its meeting on Thursday Ben-Eliezer's proposal - which he said was based on lessons learned from the controversial Beit Hanoun incursion earlier this week - to conduct "smart and quiet pinpoint" operations inside Palestinian controlled Area A territories.
Ben-Eliezer explained his proposal by saying that Israel has not given up its policy of no longer regarding the Area A delineations as a barrier to actions against mortar attacks. But future army actions will carry a "small signature," and will not include large-scale troop movements, he said.
The idea is to avoid the kind of operations that get widespread television coverage and are interpreted as Israeli invasions of Palestinian Authority (PA) territory - as happened in the recent Beit Hanoun operation, which was harshly condemned by Washington, said Haaretz.
MORTAR ATTACKS CONTINUE
The Jerusalem reported that despite warnings by Arafat that those who carry out mortar attacks would be subject to trial, Palestinians continued firing mortars at Jewish settlements inside the Gaza Strip and in Israel.
Earlier Thursday night, two mortar rounds were fired at Kibbutz Nir Oz inside the Green Line, and earlier in the afternoon two rounds were fired at an army post between Morag and Atzmona settlements. Since the beginning of the year, over a hundred mortar shells have been fired at Jewish communities in the Gaza area.
The Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said Thursday night it expects Arafat “to keep his word and order his security forces to act against those firing mortar shells at Israel, including Hamas.” It said that words are not enough, and that Israel expects action. A source in the Prime Minister's Office added that Arafat's declarations were aimed at the Americans, and at securing an invitation to Washington.
But a Hamas West Bank leader, Hassan Youssef, told Al Jazeera satellite channel in an interview that Arafat did not order the attacks in the forst place, and he cant order Hamas to stop them now.
"We in Hamas are sticking to the choice of resistance as long as there is occupation of our land and settlements on our land," Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in Gaza, told AFP.
But he refused to comment directly on the Arafat order and said the movement would not do anything to jeopardise its relations with Arafat's Palestinian Authority, saying relations "will continue to be good."
The channel showed exclusive footage of Hams activists firing mortars.
ISRAELI ARAB MINISTER: PALESTINIANS, ISRAELIS HOLDING SECRET TALKS
Israeli Arab Minister without Portfolio Salah Tarif claimed Friday that Israel and the Palestinians have been holding secret contacts, both direct and indirect, to renew negotiations, Israel Radio reported, quoted by Haaretz.
Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh rejected such a claim, saying, "If there were such contacts they were not held with consent from Sharon or the government."
He added that "there is a need to differentiate between negotiations on substantial matters that will not be conducted while violence continues and contacts to bring about an end to the violence."
Tarif also revealed that the US and Israel had recorded a telephone conversation between Syrian President Basher Assad and Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in which Assad congratulated him on the capture of three Israeli soldiers on the Israel-Lebanon border in October – Albawaba.com
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