Thirty-nine Palestinians were wounded Sunday in the West Bank, including 24 in the city of Ramallah, during an Israeli incursion.
In a separate incident, an Israeli soldier was shot dead when Palestinians returned fire in defense against an Israeli attack on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Force 17 guards, an Israeli arm spokesman told AFP.
The agency added that the Israelis were trying to arrest fighters from Force 17, responsible for guarding the life of President Arafat.
The Israeli troops withdrew from Ramallah following a four-hour incursion into the city, during which a Palestinian police officer was killed and 26 other people were injured.
A second soldier was slightly injured in the skirmish, the spokesman said.
Ramallah was the scene of intense clashes overnight as Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships made a four-hour incursion into the autonomous Palestinian town in response to a Palestinian ambush near Jerusalem which killed an Israeli settler
Meanwhile, the military wing of the Fateh movement claimed responsibility for killing a Jewish settler in occupied east Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, ten Palestinians were also wounded in Hebron and two in Beit Jala, while another three were hit in Nablus, said the head of West Bank hospitals, Mussa Abu Hmeid, cited by AFP.
Hmeid also said a 70-year-old Palestinian woman, Saadia Al Bakri, died of a heart attack after her house was attacked by Israeli tanks.
"Israeli soldiers prevented the ambulance from arriving on the scene and this woman could not receive treatment on time," he said.
He also described as "war crime and state terrorism" the killing of a Palestinian ambulance driver during clashes in the region of Bethlehem.
Meanwhile, the military wing of the Fateh movement, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, claimed responsibility Sunday for an attack in which a Jewish settler was shot and fatally wounded in occupied east Jerusalem.
It said its fighters "fired at a settlers' car, hitting its occupants," in a statement received by AFP in the Lebanese capital.
Meir Weishof, 23, was hit by Palestinian gunfire on Saturday night and died later of his wounds, hospital sources in Jerusalem said.
The settler sustained critical head injuries while he was in a car driving between the Jewish settlements of Ramot and French Hill in the occupied east Jerusalem.
Another passenger in the vehicle was less seriously hurt.
Israeli police sealed off the area and launched a manhunt for the assailants, who fled in another car, AFP said.
Haaretz said, meanwhile, that three Jewish settlers were lightly wounded Sunday morning when an explosive device blew up near their car as they were leaving a settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus.
Since the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of military occupation erupted in September 2000, AFP has reported 617 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. In the same period, according to the agency, resistance fighters have killed 165 Israelis - Albawaba.com
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