Israeli troops kill Palestinian gunmen in clashes

By Atef Saad

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli troops killed a
Palestinian gunman during a clash outside the West Bank city of
Nablus on Thursday hours after a militant was shot dead in an
attack on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.

Bloodshed has largely subsided since a ceasefire in
February, but sporadic violence has raised fears that Israel’s
planned pullout from occupied Gaza in August could be disrupted
and has dampened hopes of peace talks afterwards.

Israeli military sources said troops fired on two gunmen in
the Balata refugee camp in Nablus who had tried to attack
Jewish worshippers en route to a nearby shrine known as
Joseph’s Tomb.

Sources in al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of
the dominant Palestinian group Fatah, described the militant as
a comrade. They said he was 16 years old and was on Israel’s
wanted list in connection with a Palestinian uprising.

Another teenager was critically wounded when Israeli
soldiers fired on Palestinian stone-throwers in Balata,
witnesses said. The army said troops had come under fire but
did not shoot back.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces said they had handed to
the Palestinians the body of an Islamic Jihad militant killed
in an overnight attack on a Jewish settlement. Soldiers said
they found grenades, a bomb and an assault rifle at the scene.

The attack late on Wednesday was claimed by the group,
which has a small popular following and less at stake in
peacemaking than other factions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon pledged at a summit last month to work to
preserve the truce and coordinate security steps to enable a
smooth evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza.

The plan is the first to remove settlements from land that
Palestinians want for a state. But while Israel gives up Gaza
it will keep a strong hold on far larger communities in the
West Bank. Israel captured the territories in the 1967 war.