Israeli troops on Thursday killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Hebron, while a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad activist escaped an assassination attempt in Tulkarem, said reports.
Palestinian sources told the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, that Rakan Abu Arram, 28, was shot dead during clashes with the occupation troops in Yatta village, south of Hebron.
The clashes flared following an Israeli incursion into several Palestinian areas in the city, they said.
Meanwhile, WAFA reported that a special Israeli army unit failed to kill Anwar Elayyan, 23, as he was walking out of his house near the Noor Shams refugee camp in the city.
They said he was shot in the shoulder, describing his condition as critical.
Another Palestinian was wounded in the attack.
But Israeli army sources said the Islamist was wounded during an exchange of fire in the area, denying he was the target of an assassination attempt.
Meanwhile, WAFA reported that a Palestinian child was seriously wounded when Israeli troops opened fire on his home in eastern Gaza City.
Omar Ramadan, 4, was shot in the abdomen, said WAFA.
Earlier on Thursday, in Ramallah, an Israeli man in his 60s was reportedly shot to death by Palestinians in a restaurant, Israel Radio said.
It said that the Israeli, whose identity was not immediately known, went to eat with his Arab friends in a restaurant at Naalin, near Ramallah.
Unidentified Palestinians suddenly entered the restaurant and shot him in the head, it added.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance fighters and residents celebrated their "victory over Sharon," minutes after the last Israeli tank pulled out of the Beit Jala in Bethlehem, said AFP.
"He will never come back here; we have defeated (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon," Abu Hussein, a resistance fighter, told the agency.
At 5:00am, the last tank screeched back into Israeli-controlled territory, ending the Intifada's longest incursion and fighting that had raged since Tuesday morning when Israeli forces moved into the town, following shooting on the nearby Jewish settlement of Gilo.
"If he tries to come back, we know how to beat him now," said Abu Hussein, his machinegun still strapped around him. "We will fight him any time he wants; we will eat him."
Residents handed out candies to the tired gunmen gathered at one of the strategic spots occupied by the army near the Lutheran church, as more armed Palestinians celebrated their "victory" by honking as they drove home after three sleepless nights, firing their Kalashnikovs in the air, according to the agency.
Three nights of clashes left 11 Palestinians wounded, two of them seriously, and 20 homes partly destroyed.
According to Haaretz newspaper, the decision to withdraw was taken at a three-hour meeting of the security cabinet, where it was decided that if the shooting at Gilo resumed then the army would not only go back into Beit Jala, but would expand its hold there. The withdrawal began at around 4:00am, it said.
PRECARIOUS NEGOTIATED RESOLUTION TO BEIT JALA CRISIS
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem were quoted by Radio Israel as saying that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had given a pledge to Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the United States that he would stop the shooting at Gilo.
However, Palestinian Authority Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said that if the ceasefire in the Beit Jala area held, then the chances of a meeting between Arafat and Peres would increase, and possibly the ceasefire could be expanded to other areas of the Occupied Territories.
He warned against a harsh Israeli response to the possibility of one or two bullets still being fired at Gilo. "We did our best in order to bring about a ceasefire," said Abed Rabbo. "If there is a bullet here or a bullet there, there might be one person who will try to undermine (the ceasefire), but this does not permit the Israelis to respond with shelling, with attacking Palestinian residential areas."
But senior Israeli defense sources suggested that Arafat's decision to agree to a ceasefire was only short-term. The sources added their claim that Arafat had not abandoned his decision to use violence in an effort to make diplomatic gains, according to the daily.
Besides Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer and Peres, four other ministers - Silvan Shalom, Dan Meridor, Eli Yishai and Natan Sharansky - also participated in the security cabinet meeting.
The US State Department expressed the hope that if the truce between Beit Jala and Gilo held, it could become a springboard to a wider accord and a possible start toward "peacemaking."
An Israeli military spokesman said earlier that no Palestinian attacks had been launched during the night, the key condition for an Israeli withdrawal from the positions they had seized overnight Monday.
However, Israeli public radio warned that army units posted at the entrance to Beit Jala remained at the ready to return should Palestinian gunfire in the area resume, according to AFP.
After the meeting, Sharon telephoned US Secretary of State Colin Powell to inform him of the decision, a political source told the agency.
The United States had been strongly critical of the Israeli incursion into Palestinian autonomous territory.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday that Washington opposed Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories, particularly if they appeared to be open-ended or permanent.
"There is a fundamental issue here and that's trying to reverse agreements and understandings that have been made in the past," he told reporters in Washington.
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 15,000.
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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