Palestinian teen killed in Israeli raid

March 04, 2006|Ravi Nessman, Associated Press

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian teenager and wounded a second person during an early morning raid yesterday in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinians said, the latest death in a recent flare-up in violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinian witnesses said Amer Basiouny, 15, was shot when he went up on the roof of his family's home in the Ein Beit Ilma refugee camp in Nablus to see what was going on after gunfire erupted in his neighborhood during the predawn Israeli raid.

The Israeli Army said troops in the camp shot an armed man and a person who threw an object, believed to have been a bomb, at the soldiers during the raid.

Residents said Basiouny was not armed. The second person was lightly wounded by shrapnel that flew into his house, they said.

The raid came amid a surge in violence in recent days as Palestinian militants waged stabbing and shooting attacks on Israelis, and Israeli troops intensified raids searching for militants.

Also yesterday, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel, causing no damage or injuries, the army said.

One rocket hit a strategic installation in an industrial area south of Ashkelon, officials said. They did not elaborate, but a fuel depot and power plant are in the area.

The army responded with artillery fire and an airstrike at suspected launching sites in Gaza. No casualties were reported. The army said at least 12 rockets have landed in Israel this week.

Israel began raids against Palestinian militants in northern West Bank after the militant Hamas group won the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliament elections.

Israel also has worked to internationally isolate Hamas, and the European Union and the United States, among other countries, have insisted the group renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist before it can be accepted by the international community.

In Nazareth yesterday, a distraught Israeli couple joined by another woman entered one of Christianity's holiest sites and set off fireworks and small explosives, sparking a large riot in the biblical town in northern Israel, police said.

At least eight people, including five police, were injured in the melee.

The assailants, who were not believed to be linked to any Jewish nationalist group, were disguised as Christian pilgrims when they entered the Basilica of the Annunciation, police said.

They remained barricaded inside the building for hours before police broke through a crowd of several thousand angry protesters and took the three away.

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