Six Palestinians were kiiled on Wednesday by Israeli gunfire. In the morning, Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip killed three Palestinian security men in a gun battle and wounded at least 30 people in a separate raid on a refugee camp, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.
The bloodshed followed a mortar bomb attack that wounded 10 Israeli soldiers on Tuesday.
Palestinian officials said Israeli undercover soldiers who drove up to a Palestinian guard post in a civilian car shot dead two security men and wounded two others in an exchange of fire near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim.
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned the Israeli operation as "murder in cold blood". "This is part of the Israeli government's rejection of the 'road map' and an insistence on continuing on the road of conflict, war and blood," Erekat told Reuters.
Earlier, an Israeli armored force backed by helicopter gunships raided the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Hospital officials said some 20 Palestinians were wounded by a missile fired by an Apache helicopter. Witnesses said Israeli bulldozers destroyed four houses before the force withdrew.
Palestinian governor Hosni Zoaroub said bulldozers tore down 10 buildings in the camp. He said 60 people were left homeless. Also Wednesday, explosions and gunfire were heard north of Gaza City in the area of Beit Lahiya, witnesses said.
The Israeli army also continued its sweep of the West Bank early Wednesday, arresting a woman, a mother of four, in the northern city of Tulkarem whose husband is a leader of the Islamic Jihad group arrested six months ago, Palestinian security sources said.
Clashes erupted east of Nablus' Old City between young Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli soldiers searching houses backed by two tanks and several other armoured vehicles, the sources added. Two Palestinians were killed and at least eight were wounded.
Later, a Palestinian boy was shot in the head during an Israeli army operation in the West Bank city of Jenin and died of his wounds moments later, Palestinian medical sources said.
Diya Ghawadrah, 12, was hit by heavy machine-gun fire near the hospital, AFP reported.
Three other Palestinians were wounded during the operation and three activists captured, including a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. (Albawaba.com)
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