WEST BANK/GAZA/JERUSALEM: ISRAELI TANKS KILLED THREE PALESTINIANS IN JENIN/MOURNERS ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF FIVE SETTLERS KILLED BY A PALESTINIAN GUNMAN

Record ID: 640708

  • Title: WEST BANK/GAZA/JERUSALEM: ISRAELI TANKS KILLED THREE PALESTINIANS IN JENIN/MOURNERS ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF FIVE SETTLERS KILLED BY A PALESTINIAN GUNMAN
  • Date: 20th June 2002
  • Summary: SV BODY OF DEAD PERSON LYING COVERED ON THE GROUND, GRIEVING WOMAN UNCOVERS THE FACE AND STROKES IT WHILST SHE WEEPS SV BODY OF SMALL CHILD KILLED IN THE SHOOTING INCIDENT LYING ON GROUND SWATHED IN WHITE SHEET, BUT FACE UNCOVERED
  • Embargoed: 5th July 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JENIN, NABLUS AND ITAMAR SETTLEMENT, NEAR NABLUS; WEST BANK / GAZA CITY AND NETZARIM SETTLEMENT; GAZA / JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA7OA72MKMMUVZ7W6QXJXVYEEM0
  • Story Text: Israeli soldiers have fired on a market in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing two children and a man and wounding many other Palestinians who mistakenly thought a curfew had been lifted. Hospital officials said a seven-year-old girl, a six-year-old boy and the deputy director of the city's department of education had been killed and dozens of people wounded by machine-gun fire and tank shelling.
    Mourners have attended the funeral of five settlers killed on Thursday by a Palestinian gunman in the West Bank settlement of Itamar.
    Israeli tanks killed three Palestinians who mistakenly thought a curfew had been lifted on Friday (June 21) in the West Bank city of Jenin.
    Hospital officials said a six-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl were killed along with the deputy director of the city's education department who was aged around 50.
    Twenty-six people were wounded, they said.
    "Jenin is the city with the highest number of suicide bombers. Today IDF forces were searching the city for an explosive lab. Because of the operation a curfew was imposed.
    According to an initial inquiry, the force made a mistake in the context of the situation and the matter is under full investigation. In the last three days, 33 Israelis lost their lives to terror, 31 of them civilians, and all of them were killed on purpose," an army spokesman said.
    Hours earlier, a Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis -- including three children and their mother -- in a West Bank Jewish settlement, prompting Israel to send tanks into the Palestinian-ruled city of Nablus.
    The violence, including two suicide bombings that killed 26 Israelis, has complicated efforts to end nearly 21 months of conflict and prompted U.S. President George W. Bush to delay his announcement of a new vision for Middle East peace.
    The Israeli army said it fired two tank shells to warn away a group of Palestinians who violated the curfew in Jenin, and approached them as the troops searched for a bomb factory.
    "As a result of the shooting three Palestinians were killed and 10 others were wounded. An initial inquiry indicates that the force erred in its action," an army statement said.
    Palestinian witnesses and international peace activists in Jenin said people had emerged from their homes to stock up with supplies after tanks pulled back from the city centre.
    Rumours spread that the army had scrapped the curfew it imposed when it entered Jenin on Tuesday (June 18) in what it said was an operation intended to seek out militants waging an uprising against Israeli occupation.
    A Reuters cameraman saw four corpses at the hospital.
    Hospital officials said the fourth was that of a boy killed when a building collapsed on Thursday (June 20) night after Israeli forces blew up an unoccupied house next door.
    Dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles rumbled in Nablus in the early hours of Friday morning, in what appeared to be at least the beginning of Israel's response to this week's new wave of Palestinian attacks.
    Palestinian witnesses and security officials said Israeli troops entered Nablus from three directions. There were no immediate reports of injuries or resistance.
    Israel vowed this week to retake and hold parts of Palestinian territories in response to further attacks, extending the duration of what had been regular army raids into West Bank cities to arrest militants in recent months.
    In another incident, a Palestinian opened fire and threw grenades at an Israeli force at the Erez border crossing on Friday, as Palestinian workers were waiting to enter an Israeli industrial park. Soldiers shot him dead and two Palestinian labourers were killed in the exchange of fire, a statement said, adding the incident was under investigation.
    Meanwhile, an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in a Palestinian attack near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip, Israeli security sources said.
    Later, a Palestinian child was killed and five other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire near the scene of the Netzarim attack, Palestinian security and hospital officials said.
    The child's body was taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza.
    Mourners attended the funeral of five settlers killed on Thursday (June 20) by a Palestinian gunman in the West Bank settlement of Itamar.
    The Israeli army said in a statement the Israeli death toll in Thursday's assault on the settlement of Itamar was five: Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her six children, Neria, 15, Zvi, 12 and Avishai, five, and a security guard.
    "The terrorist climbed a fence, entered one of the houses and opened fire at its residents," the army statement said.
    Soldiers who stormed the house killed the gunman. Two of the other children in the house, which burned down after a bullet ignited a gas canister, were wounded by the gunman, the army said.
    Jewish settlers living on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war have frequently come under attack during a 20-month Palestinian uprising.
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