- Title: WEST BANK: Palestinian killed in West Bank
- Date: 7th June 2009
- Summary: MORE OF BODY BODY ON STRETCHER
- Embargoed: 22nd June 2009 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVAC3BDUIBB3I85JCJLSBCATAK1Y
- Story Text: Medics say Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian man during a protest against Israel's barrier in the West Bank; senior Palestinian negotiator calls for two-state solution with the Jewish state on anniversary of the 1967 war.
Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man on Friday (June 5) in a confrontation with stone-throwing protesters in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian hospital officials said.
Medics said Aqel Srour, 35, was struck in the chest by a live bullet and another protester was wounded when soldiers shot at protesters in Nilin, a village near the city of Ramallah.
He died minutes later, Mohammed Shahwan, a doctor on the ambulance called to the scene, told Reuters.
An Israeli military spokesman said troops had opened fire when protesters threw stones at them in the village, but would not confirm whether the troops had used live ammunition.
Nilin is the scene of weekly protests against the continuing construction of an Israeli barrier that has cut through the village.
Israel says the barrier it has built along its boundary with the West Bank, territory it captured in a 1967 war, is needed to keep bombers from infiltrating its towns.
Palestinians denounce the network of fencing and concrete walls which cut deeply into the West Bank in spots such as Nilin, as a land grab that denies them territory they want for a future state. The World Court ruled in 2004 that the barrier was illegal.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinian and international peace activists demonstrated against the separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin.
The demonstrators marched from the village towards the construction site of the separation barrier and confronted Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas at them.
The Israeli Army spokesperson unit said demonstrators were rioting and were hurling rocks at the soldiers, who responded with riot dispersal means.
The barrier in Bilin cuts some 3 km (2 miles) into the village, separating some farmers from their fields.
Earlier in the day, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat held a news conference marking the 42nd anniversary for the annexation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank by Israel during the 1967 war, a day after United States President Barack Obama said he would personally pursue a two state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
He said it was a shameful mark for the international community, to have the Israeli occupation continue for all these years.
Erekat told reporters the solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict was well known.
"We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we know it's going to be a two-state solution, a state of Palestine in the '67 border with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side in peace and security with the state of Israel," he said.
In 1967 Israeli strikes against Egypt and Syria launched the Six Day War. Israel has occupied the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem, and Syria's Golan Heights ever since. Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem as its "united and eternal" capital, a claim that has not won international recognition.
About 300,000 Jews live in settlements built by Israel in the occupied West Bank land captured during the war. Settlement expansion has seriously obstructed U.S.-sponsored peace talks. The Palestinians say they cannot achieve a viable, contiguous state of their own alongside Israel if the territory they secure is riddled with Jewish settlements and outposts.
In his speech delivered in Cairo on Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama demanded Israel stop building in West Bank settlements and for Palestinians to work for peace and accept Israel's right to exist and for Palestinian militants to halt violence. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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