Israeli Soldiers Shoot Dead Palestinian Man in Turbulent Gaza StripIsraeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian a taxi driver near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, the latest casualty in the four-month wave of unrest.Ismail Ahmed Atilbani, 50, died on the spot, the source added. The exact circumstances surrounding his shooting were not immediately clear, and the Israeli army said it was investigating the incident. Atilbani's death brought to 389 the number of people killed since the Palestinian uprising broke out in late September, including 326 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs, 49 other Israelis including Jewish settlers and soldiers, and one German. Also in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, a bomb exploded in the path of an Israeli army patrol, the Israeli army said, one of the latest in a series of explosions and shooting attacks in the area in recent days. The attack came amid warnings by Israel's army chief of staff Shaul Mofaz of a likely escalation in Palestinian violence in the West Bank in the coming weeks. No one was injured in the explosion near the Kissufim crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, the army said. The bombing was claimed by a previously unknown group calling itself the Brigades of Palestinian National Resistance, which said an Israeli tank was damaged and those inside injured. "This action is a response to the continuing Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people," it said in a handwritten fax received by AFP in Gaza. "The resistance against the occupation forces and the herds of settlers will continue until they leave our land and a Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital," it added. In other violence, the army said a bomb was thrown towards one of its outposts near a market in the center of the divided southern West Bank town of Hebron. "The device was neutralized by army sappers and no one was injured," an army spokesman said, adding that the market was closed off while soldiers searched the area. The army also said several of its positions near Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip came under fire overnight. In the West Bank, a car belonging to a Jewish settler was shot at near the settlement of Ofra northeast of Ramallah but no one was injured. Another settler had been shot dead by Palestinians in a drive-by shooting in the same area on Monday. An Israeli baby was also slightly wounded when rocks were hurled at another settler car near the settlement of Ariel south of Nablus in the West Bank, the army said. Mofaz warned of a possible upsurge of Palestinian violence after the February 6 leadership election that is expected to bring hardliner Ariel Sharon to power and oust caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak. "It has already happened in Gaza, and the escalation in the strip will spread to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank)," Mofaz was quoted as saying in the Haaretz newspaper. "There are now no diplomatic negotiations, so the Palestinians have no incentives to foil terrorist attacks. In effect, there is no Palestinian (terror) prevention, period. This is a recipe for escalation, though it could take two or three weeks," he added. On Tuesday, the Israeli army said that Palestinians fired a mortar bomb on a house in the Netzarim Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip for the first time since the violence erupted four months ago, describing it as a "very serious incident." This was denied by the Palestinians. Also Tuesday, the armed wing of the militant Palestinian movement Hamas claimed responsibility for an attempted anti-Israeli attack near Netzarim using a booby-trapped donkey cart. |
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