A 10-year-old Palestinian girl, identified as Ghadir Mukhaimar, was hit in the chest by Israeli gunfire and critically injured outside a United Nations school in a southern Gaza refugee camp on Tuesday, UN and Palestinian medical officials said.
According to preliminary investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 11:00 on Tuesday, Israeli troops positioned in the vicinity of "Neve Dekalim" settlement, west of Khan Yunis, opened fire at an UNRWA elementary school in Khan Yunis refugee camp. A Palestinian schoolchild was seriously wounded by a live bullet in the chest while she was sitting at her desk.
This latest attack was the second of its kind in the same area in two days, as on Sunday, 10 October 2004, 16-year-old Jihad Sa'id Sarhan, was wounded by a live bullet in the right hand when he was sitting at his desk.
In the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces arrested early Tuesday 22 Palestinians in various West Bank areas on suspicion of affiliation with resistance factions.
Israeli sources said that 10 Palestinians were arrested in Khader village to the east of Bethlehem city.
They added that four others were rounded up in Qabatia to the south of Jenin and a Palestinian to the west of Nablus city.
Five others were captured in various Nablus district areas, the sources said, claiming that two of those arrested were Hamas activists and a third a member in the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah military wing.
Two others were arrested in Beit Forik village to the southeast of Nablus and a third in Ram town south of Ramallah city.
Among those arrested in Nablus was Yousef Aref, the Islamic Jihad leader in Nablus and a member of the factions’ coordination committee in the city.
Large numbers of Israeli soldiers encircled the Safa building and asked inhabitants to knock on the door of Aref’s apartment and ask him to get out, PIC reported.
Family members said that the soldiers forced all members of the family out of the building and detained them until Aref was taken into custody.
Aref, 58, is the father of five sons and a daughter and was frequently detained in Israeli jails. (albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
