Palestinian medics said that Israeli troops shot dead four Palestinians, among them two teenagers, in the West Bank city of Nablus early Saturday. Another Palestinian was killed in Gaza Strip.
Palestinian eyewitnesses said the fire killed three men, including one passer-by. Hospital and Red Crescent officials identified the dead as Rohi Shoman, 19; Amer Arafat, 26; and Amjad al-Masri, 15.
Amjad al-Masri and Rohi Shoman were shot in the chest in separate incidents, medics said. Both died of their injuries at nearby Rafidiyeh hopital.
Amer Arafat was pronounced dead on arrival with a gunshot wound in the back sustained in a third incident, hospital officials and medics said.
Another Palestinian, Mohammed el-Masri, was pronounced clinically dead in Nablus hospital, after Israeli occupation soldiers shot him in the head as he helped carry the coffin of his 15-year-old cousin, one of the four killed earlier by Israeli fire.
Earlier, Israeli troops firing at a stone-throwing crowd Friday in the West Bank city of Nablus injured two Palestinians, Palestinian sources said. One of the men, Majdi Kulab, 21, was critically wounded and the second man sustained moderate wounds, the sources added.
Israeli troops continued raids in the West Bank city on Friday, and were attacked in two incidents - shots were fired at soldiers and an explosive device detonated next to a jeep. Also, north of Jenin shots were fired at occupation troops.
Elsewhere, Palestinian sources said that Israeli forces, accompanied by tanks, entered the east part of Jenin.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian outside a military outpost near Khan Yunis. Palestinian security officials said he was 17 years old. A military source said the shooting occurred on Friday night and the body was found on Saturday, lying beside a bomb.
Senior Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the killings in Nablus as "atrocities" and told Reuters he held Israel "fully responsible for the consequences of this escalation."
Meanwhile, Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy political bureau chief of the Hamas Movement, has stressed that the Palestinians' and Arab people's conviction of resistance was increasing daily.
He said that on the other side those masses no longer believed in negotiations as the appropriate means of attaining rights.
In a recent interview with the Jordanian daily Adoustour, Abu Marzouk affirmed the importance of finding a unified political system in the Palestinian arena, pointing out that many programs and leaderships led to weakening Palestinian accomplishments on various levels.
He said that the US call for calming down the situation in the Palestinian areas was a mere maneuver to allow Washington free hand in Iraq.
The Hamas official said that his Movement's approval of an Egyptian proposed hudna (ceasefire) amidst escalating Iraqi anti-American occupation resistance meant offering a big service to the Americans without any Palestinian benefit.
"Resistance in Iraq meant that there should be resistance in Palestine and not vice versa or that resistance in Palestine should come to a halt because there is resistance in Iraq", he explained.
Abu Marzouk, however, stressed that there was no coordination between the Iraqi and Palestinian resistance but rather a mere harmony. Iraqi resistance helped in strengthening the Palestinian decision in rejecting hudna, he said, adding that resistance was the legitimate right of people under occupation. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
