A Palestinian man was shot in the back during clashes with Israeli troops in the northern West Bank village of Deir Istiya following a protest against Jewish settlement-building on occupied Palestinian land, witnesses told AFP.
Fist-fights and stone-throwing broke out between settlers on the one hand and local Palestinian residents and Israeli peace activists on the other after the army stopped around 700 Palestinians from continuing their march, said the agency.
The army then opened fire, injuring one man in the back. He was taken to the hospital.
Five Israeli peace activists and four Palestinians, including the mayor of Deir Istiya, a village south west of Nablus, were arrested.
Deir Istiya is surrounded by a number of Jewish settlements that have been built on the occupied West Bank in contravention of United Nations resolutions.
Army Radio reported that Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer ordered the army not to allow settlers to establish any more encampments, but had not reached a decision on the existing ones.
However the radio quoted a senior security source as saying that at this stage the Israeli forces had no intention of entering into a confrontation with the settlers over the encampments.
Also on Friday, Palestinian sources reported that Israeli troops entered Palestinian controlled territory in Kabatia near the West Bank city of Jenin and destroyed a Palestinian police outpost.
The army said that it had no knowledge of the incident, according to Haaretz.
Reuters reported that the Islamic Jihad movement vowed at a rally in the Gaza Strip on Friday to continue suicide bomb attacks against Israel, and told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "go to hell.”
Abdallah Al Shami, a leader of the militant Palestinian movement, was quoted as saying that such attacks had forced Sharon to announce a limited unilateral ceasefire, and to urge Palestinians to stop shooting after eight months of violence.
"Our resistance and our martyrdom operation led him (Sharon) to this way of thinking," Shami told about 2,000 supporters.
"Go to hell Sharon, you and your state, and your settlers. The Jerusalem brigade (of Islamic Jihad) will strike everywhere and you will not be protected by your helicopters and missiles," he said.
The Palestinians regard Sharon's ceasefire as a propaganda ploy.
Haaretz also reported that Palestinian gunmen fired at the vehicle of the Southern Har Hebron regional security officer near the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday. A number of bullets hit the vehicle, but the officer escaped unharmed.
The security officer had driven to the spot after a local resident reported that shots had been fired at him in the area. When the officer arrived, the gunmen opened fire on him.
An Israeli army unit in the area returned fire, said the report.
Meanwhile, a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip came under fire from four Palestinian mortar bombs early Friday, falling on open land near greenhouses and causing no casualties, according to an Israeli military source.
The Israeli army did not retaliate, in line with its latest orders, the source said.
Elsewhere overnight Thursday, an Israeli civilian car was fired on in the south of the West Bank. No one was injured.
Meanwhile, Haaretz reported that Israel army’s presence in the West Bank will be beefed up by several special forces units in order to improve security on the roads, the general staff decided Thursday.
Some of the teams will operate undercover, lying in ambush for Palestinian attacks, while others will be high-profile, demonstrating a presence on the roads. The decision was approved by Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said the paper.
The occupation troops are also preparing for a possible decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to launch a new offensive in the territories if the Palestinians do not respond soon to his unilateral cease-fire, it added.
Senior army officers were quoted as saying that that the cease-fire was merely an "operational halt" in an ongoing war - essentially a breathing space designed to let both sides regroup before the next battle.
They also expressed fear that following the deaths of four settlers this week, the danger of a revenge attack by settlers had grown. The Israeli army, they said, has not succeeded in protecting the settlers from armed Palestinians.
In a report to Ben-Eliezer Thursday, the army noted that 18 Israelis were killed in the territories this month. Since the conflict began, only November has registered a worse toll, with 32 Israelis killed.
Since the outbreak of the Intifada on September 29, 2000, 94 Israelis (including two foreign workers from Romania) have been killed: 61 civilians and 33 soldiers. In the last two months, however, almost all the deaths have been civilian. Even the two soldiers who died were killed in drive-by shootings rather than in the course of army operations.
In addition to the deaths, 696 Israelis have been wounded since the start of the Intifada, according to the report.
The Palestinian Red Cross reports that over 14,000 Palestinians have been injured in the conflict since September – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
