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5 Palestinians Killed in Ongoing Clashes With Israeli Forces
Five Palestinian protestors were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian hospital sources said in Saturday afternoon.
Three people had been killed in the Gaza Strip, one in the West Bank city of Nablus and another in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the sources said.
The exchange of fire between the Israeli soldiers and the Palestinian police and some armed Palestinians are continuing at the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the center of the Gaza Strip, which witnessed the most violent clashes Saturday.
The number of the injured Palestinians in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday reached 285 at noon but nobody was killed at that time, according to the Red Crescent Society.
Eighty Palestinian protestors were wounded in the Gaza Strip where the violence has spreaded to nearly all the Jewish settlements. The demonstrators hurled stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded with rubber coated as well as live bullets.
In the West Bank cities of Hebron and Ramallah, protests and clashes are continuing.
The Palestinian leadership has declared Saturday the "day of mourning" for the five Palestinians killed Friday during clashes with Israeli security forces at the holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, and called for a general strike.
Clashes broke out at the holy site on Thursday following a visit by Ariel Sharon, the hawkish leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party, to the religious shrine in Jerusalem's walled Old City.
A Palestinian policeman also shot dead an Israeli soldier in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya on Friday.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the escalating violence at a cabinet meeting on Friday and vowed not to give up the sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Israel barred its citizens on Friday from entering Palestinian-ruled areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the trouble flared. It closed the border crossing between Jerusalem and the West Bank on Saturday.
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