Israeli tanks shell village after gunfire strafes Jerusalem

12:00 PM

JERUSALEM - Israeli tanks on Monday shelled buildings in the West Bank town of Beit Jala used by Palestinian gunmen to spray machinegun fire at Israeli apartment houses.

A 45-year-old Palestinian man was killed during a shootout between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in the divided West Bank town of Hebron, hospital officials said. It was the first fatality reported during a day of sporadic clashes.

In the Gaza Strip, Jewish settlers in a convoy of cars were targeted by a powerful roadside bomb near Netzanim. No-one was injured.

Three Palestinians were slightly hurt and several buildings damaged after Israeli tanks fired shells at Beit Jala near Bethlehem, witnesses said.

The Israeli attack came minutes after Palestinian gunmen in the town sprayed machinegun fire at apartment buildings across the valley in the Gilo Jewish settlement, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Israel considers Gilo to be a neighbourhood of Jerusalem and the almost nightly shootings from Beit Jala towards the area have unsettled Israelis' sense of security.

Israeli television footage of the firefight showed the black sky lit up by tracer bullets and smoke in the distance.

Monday's shooting at Gilo came despite a warning by Israel that it would intensify its response if gunmen continued firing.

Israeli helicopters fired missiles on Sunday night at buildings used by gunmen in the town following a shooting attack. On Friday night an Israeli tank fired a single shell into an empty field as a warning shot after a similar shooting.

"If the danger against the residents of Gilo continues we will take further steps and today already we will surround Beit Jala," army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz told Israel Radio.

Israel built houses in Gilo, situated between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, after capturing the land in the 1967 Middle East war.

The army said it would respond to the roadside bomb attack against the Jewish settlers' convoy in Gaza "in the right way and at the right time".

Israeli security forces have been warning that Islamic militants were planning bomb attacks against Israeli targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in Israeli cities.

Clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli army continued sporadically elsewhere on Monday.

Witnesses in Hebron said the prolonged shootout between Israeli troops and Palestinians took place in a neighbourhood near a Jewish settlement in the heart of Hebron.

The Israeli army said soldiers opened fire on Palestinian gunmen after shots were fired at the Jewish settlement in the flashpoint town.

At least 128 people, almost all of them Palestinians, have been killed in a wave of bloody clashes that have rocked the region for over three weeks and shattered Middle East peacemaking.

Gunfights also raged between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen near the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Nablus.

Near the Gush Katif Jewish settlement in the mostly Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip, dozens of children threw stones at an army base, and soldiers opened fire, critically wounding a 13-year-old boy.

Hospital sources said the boy was hit in the head by a rubber-coated metal bullet.

Colonel Raanan Gissin, an army spokesman, said the army had decided to impose a "partial closure" around Beit Jala to prevent armed militias of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction from entering.

"In the past few days we have seen this has been a pattern. They've been infiltrating into the area at night...and start the shooting immediately with darkness," Gissin said.

He said the army would deploy roadblocks and troops to enforce the partial closure.

Palestinians have accused the Israeli army of using excessive force. Israel said its soldiers were acting with restraint when attacked by Palestinian gunmen and firebombs.

- REUTERS

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