Shootings Israel

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man at a roadblock in the West Bank on Thursday, officials said, in an incident that overshadowed the Palestinian "Day of Rage" protests against Jewish settlements. The Israeli army said Ala Abu Sharkh, 22, was the passenger in a car driven by his brother that "tried to run over an Israeli soldier" at a checkpoint south of the divided West Bank city of Hebron. He died of his wounds in an Israeli hospital. Palestinian officials disputed the Israeli account.

Mouawiyah Masri, a Palestinian lawmaker who was shot and wounded in an assault by three masked men after signing an anti-corruption manifesto, said that at least one of the attackers is a member of the Palestinian security forces. Masri, 55, said he believes that he was attacked Wednesday because the declaration holds Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat directly responsible for rampant corruption in the government. The head of the Nablus police, Col.

Assailants opened fire on a bus traveling through the West Bank on Saturday, injuring five Israelis. Police suspected Palestinians in the attack, which came two days before a major peace summit. Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. leaders were scheduled to meet Monday in Oslo to open talks on a final peace agreement.

Breaking away from a funeral procession, 200 Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli soldiers Wednesday in a third day of protests over the army's shooting of a Bethlehem souvenir vendor. Masked protesters twirling slingshots hurled rocks and empty bottles at soldiers guarding Rachel's Tomb, an Israeli enclave in Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem. Israeli troops responded with tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets.

Before the first 24 hours of the U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire ended Thursday afternoon, two Palestinians and an Israeli had been shot to death. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that because of the violence, he will not count the day as the start of the six-week cooling-off period the sides agreed to observe.

An Israeli was killed in a shooting attack Saturday in northern Israel, and a Palestinian activist died in Israeli army fire in the West Bank. The casualties occurred on the eve of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' planned trip to Egypt and Jordan to discuss an Arab plan to end the violence. In the Gaza Strip, five Israeli youths were injured by a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement. Israel blamed Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and vowed retaliation.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian today, just hours after world leaders at a Group of 8 summit pressed the warring sides to accept outside observers in the troubled region. Palestinian security sources said an Israeli tank shell killed a 48-year-old Palestinian when it hit his home in a village in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gunmen killed one Israeli and wounded another in the West Bank on Friday, and about 3,000 Palestinians marched in a funeral procession for two militants whose car was attacked by Israeli helicopters. The gunmen, believed to be Palestinians, shot the Israelis at close range on the road near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, north of Ramallah, an army spokesman said. The army said the attackers escaped.

Two Israeli settlers were shot and killed in the West Bank as they patrolled in a vehicle near their community south of Nablus, an Israeli army spokesman in Jerusalem said. He said the army imposed a curfew on Palestinian villages near the settlement and was searching for the assailants.

Palestinian youths hurled stones and gasoline bombs, and Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets Wednesday on a day of mourning for three Palestinian workers shot to death at an Israeli checkpoint the night before. At least 30 people were injured in the worst unrest in the West Bank in months, reminding some observers of the days of the intifada, the uprising against Israeli rule of several years ago.