Ten Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets in clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian youths during a demonstration near Ramallah Wednesday to protest Israel's closure of the West Bank city, medical sources told AFP.
the agency said that soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear-gas on stone-throwing youths as several hundred Palestinians joined the protest on a road between Ramallah and the university town of Bir Zeit to the north which had been blocked by Israel for days.
"Closure does not frighten us," shouted the protestors. "We will continue the uprising until we have our freedom."
Witnesses said youths also threw stones at Israeli troops, who responded with rubber bullets, at the reinforced Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem, where traffic was completely blocked.
The Nationalist and Islamic Forces, a coalition of Palestinian factions including Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, had called for marches on Israeli checkpoints on Wednesday and Friday to protest at the months-old blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"These actions are to continue with the Intifada until the end of occupation," said a statement from the coalition, adding that Friday's actions would be a "day of rage."
Another two Palestinians were slightly injured when Israeli troops fired rubber bullets on stone-throwing demonstrators in the village of al-Khader near Bethlehem, medical officials said.
PALESTINIAN MAN KILLED IN ANTI-ISRAELI PROTEST, WOMAN DIES WHEN TROOPS BLOCK HER WAY TO HOSPITAL
Earlier in the day, a Palestinian youth was shot and killed by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, while a woman died on her way to hospital when Israeli troops turned her away from a roadblock at the entrance to the West Bank town of Jenin, said reports.
Ahmed Banar, 19, was shot in the chest near the Karni crossing point in the Gaza Strip and died in hospital, hospital officials told AFP.
Witnesses told the agency that Israeli troops had opened fire on a group of youths standing near an army post at Karni.
In Jenin, a family member said he was driving Amira Nassir, a 50-year-old diabetic from the village of Faqou'a, some 12 minutes away from her house, when Israeli soldiers refused to let them through a checkpoint, said Reuters.
Nassir's relative, Mithqal Jaloudi, told Reuters she died in the car when he tried to circumvent the roadblock on a minor route into Jenin but was stopped by an Israeli patrol jeep.
EU PRESSES SHARON TO LIFT SIEGE
European leaders pressured Israel Tuesday to lift a crippling months-old siege on the Palestinian territories, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, while easing a blockade on some towns, said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat must first call a halt to the bloodshed, said reports.
"If the economy continues to deteriorate, more people plunge into poverty, the Palestinian administration is undermined, it's going to be more difficult to get back to any political stability, re-launch the (peace) process," EU external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, told a press conference.
The EU delegation, including Patten and Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, also raised with Israel its withholding of funds collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority, said The Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Palestinian officials accuse Israel of keeping back some 400 million dollars in tax revenues and customs duties, funds they say are needed to pay their cash-strapped bureaucracy.
But Sharon told the EU officials that Arafat must first make a public call for an end to the more than five months of violence.
"In order to be able to aid the (Palestinian) population, Arafat must call in his own voice for a halt to the terror, a halt to the incitement, preventative actions against terror and a return to security cooperation," he said, according to a statement from his office, quoted by the Post.
Palestinians were rebuilding Wednesday the Ramallah-Bir Zeit road, which was dug up by the Israeli army as part of a tightened blockade around Ramallah which it said was due to information about a planned terror attack.
Students at the besieged Bir Zeit university, the most prestigious in the West Bank, are due to go back to class on Saturday, according to AFP – Albawaba.com
Public works minister Azzam al-Ahmad told AFP the Palestinians were opening alternative roads in much of the West Bank to circumvent roadblocks and try to ensure the movement of people and goods.
"We have decided that we will try to open all roads we have control over despite the Israeli government policy of closure. We hope that the government will reconsider its policy of closure and siege," he added.
But Brigadier General Benny Gantz, commander of Israeli troops in the West Bank, warned: "The siege around Ramallah will remain while there exists a real danger of attacks being prepared in the city."
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
