'Shoot to kill the gunmen' says Israeli mayor

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops should kill Palestinian gunmen involved in skirmishes near Jerusalem but without using heavy weapons that may harm Palestinian civilians, the city's right-wing Israeli mayor said yesterday.

"Those shooting ... should be shot at right away and killed. Let's not make any mistake about this," Ehud Olmert, a security hawk and former cabinet minister, told a news conference.

A powerful figure in the rightist opposition Likud Party, the 55-year-old Olmert said it was the first time for more than 30 years that there was regular shooting on the outskirts of the holy city.

Describing Palestinian shooting from Palestinian villages near Jerusalem as brutal and vicious, he added: "I am not happy about Israelis using [helicopters] and missiles to shoot those who shoot. Those who are shooting should be caught and killed without affecting the [civilian Palestinian] population."

Olmert was referring to Palestinian gunfire from Beit Jala, one of several villages near Bethlehem, where Palestinian gunmen among civilian homes exchange fire most evenings with Israeli troops defending the nearby Jewish settlement of Gilo.

The sound of the gunfire, which booms over Jerusalem most evenings, could have serious psychological ramifications for children, he said.

In Beit Jala, a village of 10,000, bullet holes mark many homes and at least three buildings able to house several families have been destroyed by Israeli gunfire.

- REUTERS

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