Israeli troops kill Palestinian
A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli occupation troops in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The 21-year-old man, identified as Hazim Abu Zahri, was hit in the chest after Israeli troops moved into the area on Monday.
The latest death takes to 4246 the number of people killed in the Palestinian uprising against Israel since September 2000, including 3248 Palestinians and 927 Israelis.
Also in Gaza, a four-year-old boy was wounded when Israeli snipers shot him in the thigh, Palestinian medical sources in the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital told Aljazeera.
Diya Labad was in front of his home in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah at the time of the shooting, said the sources. Earlier that day, Israeli occupation troops backed by over ten tanks briefly entered the southern part of town, damaging several houses in the process.
On Sunday, occupation troops shot and injured a stone-throwing boy while up to a dozen protesting Palestinians were also wounded on the sixth day of a curfew in Nablus.
Expanding settlements
Meanwhile, Israel has begun building 100 new housing units in a settlement outside Jerusalem as part of its drive to expand Jewish enclaves on occupied West Bank territory, political sources said on Monday.
They said construction of the new housing at Har Gilo, which currently has about 120 settler families, began earlier this month and is due to be completed by the end of the year.
Palestinians, backed by the Arab League, accused the United States on Sunday of destroying the Middle East peace process by signalling acceptance of some growth in Israeli settlements.
US about-turn
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Israel has begun building 100 new |
Washington had long called on Israel to halt settlement expansion in accordance with a US-backed “road map” to peaceful Palestinian statehood. But the plan has been hampered by violence, and Israel has blamed the Palestinians for failing to rein in resistance fighters waging an almost four-year-old uprising.
On Saturday the Bush administration signalled flexibility on some limited growth in West Bank settlements to help embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon push through his plan to withdraw completely from occupied Gaza in the face of opposition from his far right.
Palestinians are especially concerned that Israel will seal its hold on Arab East Jerusalem – captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war – by bolstering settlements around the city. Israel has annexed East Jerusalem as its capital in a move not recognised internationally.