A number of Palestinians were injured Friday in two Israeli incursions in Hebron and Gaza, and clashes in Ramallah, said reports.
The latest was in Ramallah when three Palestinians were injured Friday, one of them seriously, following a protest in the West Bank town of Ramallah after Friday prayers.
AFP said that some 800 Palestinians belonging to various movements had demonstrated to support the pursuit of the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli occupation, following the Friday prayers.
The protestors chanted slogans calling for "revolt until victory" and waved Palestinian and Iraqi flags, as well as the green flag of Islam and the yellow one of the Lebanese Hizbollah group.
When the protest broke up near the northern edge of the autonomous zone of Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, around 300 young Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers guarding the Beit El army headquarters, witnesses said.
The soldiers first retaliated by firing tear gas grenades, and then seriously wounded a 22-year-old Palestinian with a live bullet, and two others with rubber bullets, they said.
Earlier, five Palestinians were wounded in an exchange of gunfire with Israeli troops Friday at the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Deir Al Balah, Palestinian security sources told AFP.
An Israeli tank briefly entered the Palestinian-controlled camp and fired two shells on a Palestinian police post, they said.
Israeli bulldozers also wiped out several acres of trees while troops searched Palestinian houses looking for weapons, they said, adding that the incursion followed an exchange of gunfire between the two sides.
The Israeli army confirmed it entered the area and said none of its troops had been wounded in the operation, according to the agency.
It had reported that two Palestinians were killed in an overnight incursion into Hebron, when some 15 Israeli tanks and armor vehicles stormed the Abu Snena district of the divided city, which has been a violence flashpoint.
Later, it corrected the information, citing hospital sources as saying that the two Palestinians were only lightly wounded. At least four other were also injured in the attack.
However, it was reported by the Palestinian news agency (WAFA) that an old woman died of a heart attack during the raid.
The agency identified the victim as Kheireyyeh Wazwaz, 70.
The incursion into Hebron was called after a gun battle between Palestinians in Abu Snena and Israeli troops guarding a nearby Jewish settlement, sparked by the sniper shooting and serious wounding of two Israeli young settlers in the city, according to Israeli sources quoted in The Jerusalem Post.
The Israeli also demolished two houses allegedly used by the Palestinian fighters who were engaged in the battle to defend the area, said other reports.
Around 400 Jewish settlers live under heavy army protection in the center of Hebron, surrounded by a Palestinian population of some 120,000.
An Israeli army spokesman said at about 1:00 am (2200 GMT) that the incursion had ended and troops were withdrawing from the area.
Israeli troops also earlier shot dead 11-year-old Palestinian Mohammad Jaber Zorob and injured 10 others when a crowd of youths stoned an Israeli army position in the southern Gaza Strip, reported the agency.
Medical officials said two of the injured were in serious condition.
The flare-up in violence came during an day in which Israel botched its second attempt to kill a Palestinian militant in less than 24 hours.
Israeli forces fired rockets at Palestinian police Colonel Jihad Al Masimi in the West Bank town of Nablus, slightly wounding the officer, as well as his driver and a passer-by.
Five Palestinians were wounded on Thursday while resisting an Israeli armored attack on Deir Al Balah. Earlier, yet another Israeli assassination attempt failed when the target escaped with light wounds.
Three Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian refugee camp of Deir Al Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip Thursday, provoking firefights which left four Palestinian police wounded, Palestinian security officials told AFP. However, Al Jazeera satellite channel said five were wounded.
The tanks, accompanied by a number of army jeeps, rolled around 800 meters (2,500 feet) into Palestinian-controlled territory, running into automatic rifle fire from Palestinian resistance fighters, the officials said.
In a separate incident at the nearby El Breij refugee camp, Israeli tanks blasted a Palestinian security post, although there were no immediate reports of injuries, said AFP, adding that the strikes appeared to be retaliation for three Palestinian mortar shells which landed in the same area, without causing any injuries.
Col. Jihad Al Masimi, 46, his driver and a passer-by were wounded in the failed hit in the Balata refugee camp in south Nablus, which came hours after another Israeli "targeted killing" failed in Gaza.
The attack was carried by Apache helicopters which fired three surface-to-surface missiles, Palestinians told TV reporters.
Senior foreign ministry official Oded Iran told AFP that Masimi was the target of the army strike because he was involved in several terror activities in the Nablus area and was planning further attacks.
Palestinian officials say that over 40 political leaders and resistance fighters have been killed under Israel's assassination policy, variously called by the euphemisms "targeted killings," "liquidations," "surgical strikes," and "interception operations."
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer has ordered a probe of the occupation army's failure to eradicate Hamas military leaders in the Gaza Strip, including Mohammad Deif, who is believed to be the Gaza head of the group's Ezzeddin Al Qasam Brigades.
The other leader mentioned in the reports was Adnan Al Ghul, reportedly the most senior wanted Palestinian who Israel has targeted so far.
Haaretz reported that a debriefing would be held Thursday in the offices Ben Eliezer in an effort to ascertain why Israeli assassination attempts had failed.
The Israeli press called the failed operation against Ghul "the big miss," since Deif and Ghul top Israel's wanted list for "terrorists."
The minister was later quoted as defending the near-hits. The Jerusalem Post said that the Israeli defense establishment is unconcerned that it had twice in two days missed killing key "terrorists."
In the missile attack near Gaza City, Palestinian security officials said Israel's US-made Apache attack helicopters fired at two cars carrying Deif, Ghul and his son, Bilal, 22, who was killed in the attack.
Palestinian sources confirmed that Ghul was one of Hamas' most senior bomb-makers, while his son belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, which coordinate the armed activities of diverse anti-Israeli resistance groups.
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 563 Palestinians, and 146 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
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 14,000.
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)
