- Title: WEST BANK/GAZA/JERUSALEM: FOUR PALESTINIANS KILLED IN OVERNIGHT GUN BATTLES
- Date: 21st August 2001
- Summary: (W3)HEBRON, WEST BANK (AUGUST 21, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV VARIOUS OF TRACER FIRE DURING GUNFIGHT AT NIGHT 0.04 2. LV PALESTINIAN GUNMEN CROUCHING BEHIND WALL 0.08 3. SLV PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS SITTING OUTSIDE HOUSE DURING GUNFIGHT 0.13 4. GV TRACER CROSSING ABOVE CITY DURING GUN BATTLE (2 SHOTS) 0.23 (W3)RAMALLAH
- Embargoed: 5th September 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NABLUS, HEBRON AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK / GAZA / JERUSALEM
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVAB5MNANPJHMANEX3O2EL8IXW96
- Story Text: Four Palestinians have been killed in overnight gun
battles in the West Bank and Gaza. As Palestinians prepared
for the victim's funerals, Israel fired two surface-to-surface
missiles at a Palestinian police station near the Khan Younis
refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, moderately wounding seven
policemen.
The gun battles began just hours after Israel and the
Palestinians gave the go-ahead for a meeting between
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres.
A familiar routine of West Bank gun battles between
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters resumed in the
divided city of Hebron and in the city of Ramallah.
Israeli soldiers shot dead four Palestinians in the early
hours of Wednesday (August 22) near the West Bank city of
Nablus, Palestinian officials said. Four other Palestinians
were wounded in the incident.
The Palestinian officials and witnesses said three
civilians were killed as they tried to rescue a gunman who had
been shot by soldiers in a gun battle, and that the gunman
also later died.
Three of the bodies were found at dawn in an olive grove
near the village of Beit Iba. The fourth dead man, apparently
the gunman they tried to rescue, was later turned over to
Palestinian medics after Israeli troops allowed them to
retrieve his body.
The army declined to make an immediate comment, but an
Israeli military source said troops had fired at a group of
Palestinians planting a bomb which was later defused.
Israeli and Palestinian officials have often given
contradictory versions of shooting incidents since a
Palestinian uprising flared against Israeli occupation in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip nearly 11 months ago.
Raanan Gissan, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, described the operation to kill the four Palestinians
as "very successful".
He added: "We were able to put an ambush to those who came
over with a roadside explosive, kill one of the members of the
squad. I think a very interesting development that happened
later on, an ambulance came and unloaded. Out of that
ambulance came additional terrorists who were about to open
fire and three of them were killed then."
But Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi called the attack
"cold-blooded murder." She said: "This is part of Israel's
systematic policy of cold-blooded murder, of targeting
Palestinians and, at the same time, to add insult to injury,
to try to provide a spin that would blame the victim once
again, and that would exonerate Israel from the horrific
consequences of such a brutal murder and a crime. There is no
other word for it."
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is in the region
revisiting a role as Middle East mediator. Speaking after the
first of two meetings with Fischer, Arafat said he was
prepared to meet Peres in Berlin at any moment.
Peres, in Budapest, said he intended to see Arafat in the
near future.
No date was set and, with Peres already abroad and Arafat
due to visit China from Thursday (August 23), next week
appeared to be the earliest opportunity for talks.
But political analysts from both camps were downbeat on
chances for a breakthrough between the sides.
In Jerusalem, Palestinians, joined by people of various
nationalities, held a demonstration denouncing Israel's take
over of the Palestinians' Jerusalem headquarters, known as
Orient House.
On Wednesday (August 22) afternoon Palestinians buried the
four victims killed in Nablus. Hundreds of mourners gathered
in the streets of Nablus, many firing guns into the air.
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