Israeli troops killed a Palestinian early Monday in Rafah, near the border with Egypt. Meanwhile, the Israeli army said Palestinian areas in the northern West Bank would be military closed off from Israel by a buffer zone starting on September 24, according to reports.
Hospital sources told AFP that Abdelsalam Mohammad Olyyan, 35, was shot dead and another unidentified man was wounded by Israeli fire, though there had been no apparent clashes in the area.
Another Palestinian, Mohammad Ramadan Al Kafarna, 21, died Monday after he was shot by Israeli troops on Friday during an Israeli military incursion into Beit Hanun in the north of the Gaza strip, reported the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
The agency said that Israeli tanks shelled several residential areas there, but reported no injuries.
It also said that Israeli tanks shelled the West Bank town of Jenin, destroying a number of houses.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced late Sunday that Palestinian areas in the northern West Bank would be military closed off from Israeli territory by a buffer zone starting on September 24.
"Starting on September 24, the entrance to this zone will be off-limits to all residents of the West Bank unless they are supplied with a special permit," an army spokesman said in a statement, cited by Haaretz.
The restriction was being imposed to "counter terrorist attacks" against Israel and prevent the "illegal entry of Palestinians," it said, referring to Palestinians who cross the border to work illegally.
It was clear that the restrictions would only apply to Palestinians, and not to Jewish settlers.
The zone will vary from several hundred meters up to between two and three kilometers, and would not include any Palestinian homes but mostly empty fields, the statement said.
Chief of Staff General Shaul Mofaz on Sunday told Israeli television that buffer zones would be created in the coming week along the green line from around Jenin to Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank, from where several anti-Israeli attacks have been launched.
The military zones had been decided on several weeks before by the Israeli security cabinet, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon froze their implementation on September 5.
Mofaz reinstated the plan, and said anybody caught within the buffer zone who was not a resident of the area would be arrested.
In the initial plan, similar zones were also to be set up around occupied Jerusalem, which has recently been the target of attacks, including a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizzeria on August 9.
In another development, Haaretz newspaper said that Israeli troops arrested four Palestinian brothers suspected of belonging to a Hamas cell that was allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks in Jerusalem during the holiday period of the Jewish new year.
Their father was also arrested, said the paper.
The arrests were made during an Israeli incursion in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday morning.
One Palestinian was killed in the Israeli attack and more than 26 others were wounded.
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began in September 2000.
AFP's latest death tally comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 617 Palestinians, and 165 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
According to Amnesty International, Israeli soldiers have killed roughly 100 Palestinian children, nearly all in situations where the safety of the occupation forces was in no immediate danger – Albawaba.com
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