Israeli Border Police Beat Old Palestinian to Death in Hebron

Published April 7th, 2001 - 02:00 GMT
Al Bawaba
Al Bawaba

Israeli border police beat a 63-year-old Palestinian man to death on Saturday in the West Bank city of Hebron, reported Al-Jazeera satellite channel. 

The man was identified as Mahmoud Hreibat, a shepherd, said the TV report. 

On Friday, dozens of Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli soldiers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as Palestinian President Yasser Arafat urged the United Nations to step in to save his people, said reports. 

Some 40 people were left with Israeli bullet wounds, two of them seriously injured after being hit by exploding ammunition, medical sources in the Palestinian territories told AFP. 

Less than 10 days after the US veto of a draft UN resolution that would have dispatched an observer force to protect the Palestinians, Arafat asked UN chief Kofi Annan by telephone to "intervene to stop the Israeli aggression (against) the unarmed Palestinian people," a Palestinian official said, cited by AFP. 

Eighteen of those injured Friday were hit near the northern West Bank town of Ramallah when around 300 people clashed with troops at an Israeli army checkpoint that has seen violence flare frequently during the past six months. 

Medical sources said they were all shot with rubber-coated metal bullets at the end of a march of more than 1,000 Palestinians from Ramallah after weekly prayers, adding that one other was suffering from tear gas exposure. 

"On with the Intifada (uprising)," they shouted during the march, protesting against an Israeli-Palestinian security meeting held Wednesday night near Tel Aviv by burning a banner with "security cooperation" printed on it. 

Two Israeli women were injured Friday, one of them seriously, when Palestinians threw stones at their car near the settlement of Beitar Elit near Bethlehem in the West Bank, reported Haaretz newspaper. 

In the Gaza Strip at the Karni border crossing with Israel, AFP said that nine Palestinian boys were hit by live fire as stone-throwers clashed with troops stationed there. 

Medical sources said two of them, aged 13 and 14, were in a serious condition in hospital after being shot in the stomach by exploding bullets in the clash that continued into the evening, according to AFP. 

At the nearby Erez crossing, Palestinians fired mortars at an Israeli position, added the agency.  

Soldiers responded by firing on the area from where the shots came, said Haaretz. 

Earlier, a Palestinian was shot in a separate clash that followed tit-for-tat attacks on a Jewish settlement and Palestinian security positions in the Gaza Strip overnight. 

Also in Gaza, Haaretz newspaper reported that four members of the Palestinian presidential guards unit, Force 17, were wounded Friday night when Israeli tanks and naval patrol boats fired heavy machine-guns at a police station just south of Gaza city.  

Two of the four were seriously wounded, while the other two sustained moderate wounds.  

In Bethlehem, Palestinians opened fire on an Israeli checkpoint near the Jewish holy site of Rachel's Tomb, without causing injuries, said the Israeli paper.  

In response, Israeli tanks fired seven shells toward the Aida and el-Aza refugee camps, injuring a Palestinian woman, witnesses told AFP. 

In a nearby clash, five were shot by Israeli troops who opened fire on around 70 Palestinian youths demonstrating after Friday prayers against "assassinations" of prominent Palestinians. 

The demonstrators protested the deaths of two members of the Islamic Jihad movement in the past week, one killed when Israeli helicopters fired missiles at his car, and the second blown up in a public telephone booth. 

"We will escalate the clashes against the occupation in revenge for the assassinations," a Jihad official at the march told AFP. 

Another seven Palestinian youths were shot in a clash with soldiers stationed at a checkpoint at the village of al-Khader near Bethlehem, one of them badly hurt by a live bullet, hospital sources told AFP. 

Palestinian demonstrators, meanwhile, took to the streets of the divided southern West Bank town of Hebron, where around 400 hard-line Jewish settlers live at the heart of the mainly Palestinian town of 120,000. 

Around 700 people marched peacefully through the Arab neighborhood of Abu Sneinah, which came under repeated Israeli bombardment after a 10-month-old Israeli baby was shot dead last month, witnesses said. 

But in central Hebron, one Palestinian youth was wounded when around a dozen Palestinians threw rocks and petrol bombs at soldiers who responded with rubber bullets and stun grenades, a medical source said, cited by AFP. 

On the outskirts of the northern West Bank town of Jenin, there was a short exchange of fire between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers after the funeral of Jihad militant Eyad Hardan. 

 

PALESTINIANS WARN AGAINST DEFILING AQSA  

 

Meanwhile, Haaretz reported Friday that the Palestinian Authority has said that any desecration of the Aqsa Mosque site will cause dire consequences.  

The Palestinian statement came in response to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announcement that he would support the right of Israelis to visit the holy site. The PA announcement from Gaza stated that considering the possibility of visiting the mosque compound is like playing with fire.  

Sharon instructed security officials Thursday to find the best way to enable Jewish visits to the "Temple Mount."  

Sharon's visit to the site in September of last year was the reason behind the outbreak of the Intifada of the past six months.  

In a related story, the Israeli Supreme Court denied a petition Thursday afternoon by the extremist religious Temple Mount Faithful who requested police permission to pray on the Aqsa during the Passover holiday. The judges accepted the position of the police that to allow prayers on the site would likely lead to riots in Jerusalem - Albawaba.com  

 

 

 

 

© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

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