Fresh clashes between Israelis and Palestinians flared sporadically across the West Bank and Gaza Strip Saturday, leaving at least 89 Palestinians injured, including two 13-year-olds who were both shot in the head in separate incidents, witnesses and hospital sources said, quoted by AFP.
Medical sources told Palestine news agency (WAFA) that a 23-day-old infant died the same day after she inhaled tear gas, when the Israeli forces shot bomb at her family’s home in Hebron.
Despite the clashes, Israeli army officials said levels of violence were sharply down, indicating a shaky truce agreed on Thursday between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli former prime minister Shimon Peres was starting to take effect, said AFP.
Ambulance drivers said the majority of those injured in the Gaza Strip Saturday had been shot in the legs, with only three receiving injuries to the abdomen.
They said the leg injuries showed a new trend on the part of the Israelis, who have in the past caused injuries to the chests and heads of the youths attacking them with stones and firebombs.
The boy who was shot in the head, at Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, was in a serious condition in hospital late Saturday, hospital sources told the agency.
The other 13-year-old shot in the head, in the West Bank town of Hebron, was struck while leaving school and was said by hospital sources also to be in a serious condition.
Seven other Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire in the Hebron clash, another 10 at Bethlehem, also in the West Bank, while at Ramallah nine were reported injured.
Most of the injuries reported Saturday took place in Gaza, particularly at Karni. Clashes also occurred at the Bureij refugee camp on the border with Israel and at Erez, the main crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
There were no immediate reports of deaths in Saturday's clashes, but hospital sources in West Bank town of Hizma said a Palestinian youth died overnight of wounds received on Friday and was buried on Saturday.
His death brings to 179 the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli-Palestinian clashes in the last five weeks, as calculated by Albawaba.com. More than 5,000 people have been injured -- (Several Sources)
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