Israeli tanks on Sunday shelled Beitunia in the West Bank city of Ramallah and Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported that the occupation tanks shelled areas south of the town, but did not report anyone wounded in the explosions.
In Khan Yunis, WAFA and AFP reported that Israeli tanks shelled areas in the city after the Israeli army carried out an incursion there.
The Israeli army set up military positions 200 meters (yards) inside the camp and destroyed water pipes, Palestinian sources told AFP.
The same sources added that Israeli tanks also blasted targets near the flashpoint city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, destroying several homes.
No injuries were reported in either incident, said AFP.
Earlier in the day, two Palestinian Fateh fighters were killed and 16 others were wounded in another Israeli attack on Hebron, while a car exploded on a road linking Tulkarem and the city of Nablus, killing a women and wounding four other people.
Al Jazeera satellite TV channel reported that occupation forces killed two members of Fateh near the Hebron neighborhood of Abu Sneina overnight Saturday in yet another incursion.
The army said that the soldiers, who were lying in ambush, “spotted a group of armed men and opened fire on them,” reported Haaretz newspaper, adding that three other Fateh members were wounded in the attack.
The Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported that 13 Palestinians, including four children, were wounded when Israeli tanks shelled several areas in the flashpoint city.
Meanwhile, a taxi exploded on a road linking Tulkarem and the city of Nablus, both in the West Bank, killing a Palestinian woman and wounding four other people, reports said.
Palestinian security sources identified the woman as Abir Abu Salha, 22.
According to Israel Radio, Abu Salha was the wife of a prominent member of the Fateh movement.
A high-ranking Israeli source later denied "any involvement" in the death of a senior Palestinian intelligence officer, Tayseer Khattab. He suggested to AFP that the officer may have been slain by Palestinian hardliners who oppose an end to the 11 months of violence.
Meanwhile, late on Saturday, an unknown Palestinian organization calling itself the "Bilal Al Ghul martyr" group claimed responsibility for the killing of Khattab, who died in a car explosion which also seriously wounded his bodyguard and hurt three civilians.
In a statement to AFP, the group accused Khattab of having "served the Zionist enemy for many years" by arresting Palestinian fighters.
The group's existence has not been confirmed, said the agency.
Palestinian and Israeli officials had earlier exchanged accusations over Khattab's death, which cast a shadow over the anticipated truce talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
"Israeli occupation forces carried out an ugly crime today, an assassination against Lieutenant-Colonel Tayseer Khattab, by putting a bomb in his car," a Palestinian intelligence spokesman told AFP.
Top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina, also speaking to AFP at the UN racism conference in South Africa, added: "We hold Israel responsible for this assassination and this new escalation.
The Palestinians say more than 50 people have been assassinated in targeted attacks, which Israel euphemistically calls "active self-defense," since the uprising or Intifada began.
However, a senior Israeli political source said Israel had no desire to kill Khattab since he was a "supporter" of an end to the Middle East violence.
"Those who committed this crime wanted to annihilate any possibility of Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation in the future," he told AFP.
Some 2,000 Palestinians, including many members of the security services, attended Khattab's funeral Saturday afternoon in the south of Gaza City.
However, the flags of the various Palestinian movements, generally numerous on such occasions, were notably scarce, said the agency.
Bilal Al Ghul, an 18-year-old member of the Popular Resistance Committee, was killed in an Israeli helicopter attack near Gaza City on August 22 that was aimed at his father, a senior bomb-maker of the Hamas militant group.
Israel came under international criticism last week after assassinating Abu Ali Mustapha, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in a helicopter missile attack on his West Bank office.
The intelligence officer's death came as talks were underway to set the stage for a meeting between Arafat and Peres, who shared the 1994 Nobel peace prize for an earlier peace deal, to try to bring an end to the bloodshed.
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 578 Palestinians, and 155 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss. Other sources put the number of Palestinians killed at over 600.
Israel’s wounded number in the high hundreds, according to army sources, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society puts the number of Palestinians injured at over 15,000.
Amnesty International reported early this year that almost 100 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli soldiers, nearly all in situations where the occupation troops were under no immediate threat.
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began last September - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
