Israel has categorically denied "any involvement" in the bomb blast that killed a Palestinian intelligence officer in Gaza City Saturday morning, Israel Radio and AFP reported.
The Israeli army has assassinated more than 50 Palestinian activists deemed a threat to Israel, according to AFP.
Lieutenant Colonel Tayssir Khattab's car blew up as he was driving to his Gaza City office, reported the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, adding “he died shortly afterwards in hospital.
"We deny involvement in this affair, probably caused by a work accident, or inter-Palestinian quarrels," an Israeli official told AFP.
Khattab's bodyguard was seriously wounded in the explosion, and three civilians were also hurt.
"Israeli occupation forces carried out an ugly crime today, an assassination against Lieutenant-Colonel Tayssir Khattab, by putting a bomb in his car," said the Palestinian intelligence department in a statement carried by WAFA.
"We hold Israel responsible for this bloody escalation perpetrated by Israeli intelligence and their collaborators," it added.
Khattab, 42, belonged to the service headed by Amin Al Hindi, and was in charge of training.
Meanwhile, AFP reported that eight Palestinians were wounded Saturday in clashes in Hebron overnight, as shooting continued Saturday morning following an Israeli incursion in the autonomous Palestinian West Bank town.
The Israeli operation ended around 3:00am, Palestinian witnesses told the agency.
Israeli soldiers backed up by tanks took up positions late Friday around 200 meters (yards) inside the Hart El Sheikh area and dozens of meters inside the nearby Bab El Zawia quarter of this flashpoint city.
On the first day of the new school year, several dozen schoolchildren living in Hebron's Palestinian-controlled sector were prevented from reaching their school, located a few meters inside the sector controlled by Israel.
They were stopped by the army for three hours before finally being let through. Shortly afterwards, clashes erupted afresh, with Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.
The army responded with stun grenades, rubber bullets and by firing live bullets in the air.
An Israeli army spokesman had denied Friday night that troops had entered Palestinian parts of the city, 80 percent of which was handed over to Palestinians in 1996 as part of an interim peace deal.
Hebron, which is holy to Jews and Muslims, has seen some of the worst violence since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising 11 months ago.
Some 400 extremist Jewish "settlers" live in a heavily-guarded compound in the center of Hebron, surrounded by a first, Israeli-controlled ring of 30,000-40,000 Palestinians, and a wider ring of around 80,000 inhabitants, under Palestinian control.
The overnight incursion was carried out following clashes which broke out Friday at the funeral of a Palestinian doctor killed a day earlier by Israeli soldiers.
In Ramallah, WAFA reported that Israeli tanks shelled PA national posts and residential areas.
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
The agency said that the shelling targeted a hotel in northern El Beireh, adding that several area were destroyed around the area.
The new Israeli attacks came amid preparations for a meeting between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 578 Palestinians, and 155 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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