Four Palestinians and an Israeli man were killed on Wednesday in the Occupied Territories, as the US warned that the Israeli incursion into the Beit Jala village in Bethlehem would "only make matters worse."
Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while an unknown Jewish group claimed responsibility for a Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem. A fourth Palestinian died of injured he sustained earlier in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Fateh movement, claimed responsibility for the killing Wednesday of an Israeli near Nablus in the West Bank, AFP and Haaretz newspaper reported.
"Our fighters ambushed west of Nablus, on the road to Tulkarem ... the car of a settler, a reserve officer in the Zionist occupation army called Oleg Sonikov," the group said in a statement faxed to AFP in Beirut.
The group's fighters "liquidated him with machineguns and guns at about 10:00am."
"This courageous Jihad (holy war) operation is in revenge for the killing of martyred leader Abu Ali Mustapha," the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was assassinated by the Israeli army on Monday.
The group, which has carried out numerous roadside shootings during the 11-month-old Palestinian uprising, vowed to "pursue the attacks and strikes against Zionist enemy targets and settlers to clean the land of Palestine from the Zionist invaders."
Meanwhile, the United States called on Israel to withdraw its forces from Beit Jala, saying their latest incursion into a Palestinian-controlled area would "only make matters worse."
"The Israelis need to understand that incursions like this will not solve the security problems, they only make matters worse," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher in Washington.
Israeli television reported gunbattles between soldiers and Palestinian resistance fighters in Beit Jala, which Israel handed over to the Palestinians in 1995 under interim peace accords.
It said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer had decided the army would stay until further notice, according to Haaretz newspaper.
Palestinian security sources said Israeli tanks also poured into the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Deir El Balah late Tuesday, setting off heavy gunbattles.
Witnesses told AFP that Israeli forces also attacked the Palestinian refugee camp of Aida in Bethlehem in a bid to clamp down on Palestinian resistance fighters, who turned out in force Tuesday for the funeral of chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustapha, in Ramallah.
In addition, Palestinian security sources said that Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian autonomous town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, destroying a Palestinian security post in the process.
According to AFP, the latest developments came as anger in the Arab World against Israel and its strongest ally, the United States, soared because of the latest moves. Palestinians complained anew that the Jewish state was using US weapons for its policy of "targeted killings" of Palestinian officials in violation of US law, said AFP.
Israel receives billions in US military aid every year, and with it purchases military hardware ranging from F-16s to Hellfire missiles.
Some 30 pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a noisy but peaceful protest outside the White House Tuesday, waving Palestinian flags and signs denouncing Israeli "state terrorism," AFP said.
Boucher said Washington had not determined that Israel was violating the Arms Export Control Act that requires purchases of US weapons to be used for internal security and legitimate self-defense.
"The act contains provisions on reporting to Congress in the event of substantial violations of those agreements," he said, cited by the agency.
"No decisions have been made that such a report would be required in the current circumstances."
Boucher stressed US officials had repeatedly told Israel that Washington opposed "targeted killings," like that of Mustapha, no matter what kind of weapons were used, and that it also frowned on the use of heavy weaponry in the conflict.
"It's not a question of the weapons so much as it is a question of the event," he said. "Obviously, they are aware and we are aware of the restrictions on the use of American weaponry."
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 572 Palestinians, and 154 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
Israel’s wounded number in the high hundreds, according to army sources, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society puts the number of Palestinians injured at over 14,000.
Amnesty International reported early this year that almost 100 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli soldiers, nearly all in situations where the occupation troops were under no immediate threat.
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began last September – Albawaba.com
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