Shootings Israel

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.

Israel's army used a helicopter gunship to kill an Islamic militant in the Gaza Strip on Monday and fired tank shells into Bethlehem during a firefight with Palestinians there, as both sides warned of a dangerous escalation in their conflict. Israeli officials said the strikes they are making inside Palestinian-controlled territory, once a taboo, are meant to push Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat back to the negotiating table.

Palestinian gunfire killed a Jewish baby Monday outside her settlement home in the tense West Bank city of Hebron, the Israeli army said, in another surge of bloodshed aimed at testing the new government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The army said the 10-month-old girl was shot in the head as her father cradled her in his arms. The father was also shot and seriously wounded, and a ferocious gun battle raged afterward, with Israeli forces targeting suspected Palestinian sniper positions nearby.

Israeli troops shot and killed one Palestinian and wounded at least five others Monday during clashes that erupted when about 1,500 protesters marched on barricades and trenches cutting off the West Bank town of Ramallah from surrounding villages. Members of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Cabinet questioned the tightened closure of the political and commercial center, saying it may cause an escalation of violence and trigger international condemnation of Israel, but Sharon defended the move.

At least one Israeli was killed and three injured in a shooting attack in the West Bank today, a day after Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction called for an intensification of the violence that has wracked the Mideast for three months. The victims were in a car that was fired upon as it passed an Arab village south of the settlement of Ofra, Israel Radio reported. The car overturned when the driver was killed, and one of the passengers was seriously injured, it said.

Israeli troops killed three Palestinians, one a 14-year-old boy, and wounded more than 50 people Wednesday during a six-hour gun battle near the Gaza Strip-Egyptian border, Palestinian hospital officials said. The officials and witnesses said Hani Youssef Sufi, 14, was killed during a heavy exchange in the town of Rafah. Salman Zorob, 18, died of a bullet wound in the chest suffered during the Rafah battle, the officials said.

Samir Hamzi looks at the empty tables in his spotless restaurant, a place packed just seven weeks ago with Jews and Arabs eating kosher-style Arab food beneath framed copies of Koranic verses, and sees a dream disappearing. Hamzi opened Samir's in April as a gathering place for the two peoples who so uneasily share this land. He hung cheery apricot drapes at the windows, spread the tables with crisp blue cloths and supplied comfy wicker chairs.

What was supposed to be the day a truce took hold brought some of the bloodiest fighting in two weeks to the West Bank, with Israeli troops Friday shooting to death nine Palestinians and wounding dozens. The intensifying violence came on the eve of today's crucial Arab summit in Cairo, where Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat hopes to win support from Arab governments after more than three weeks of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinian officials said a security court had handed a 12-year prison sentence to Mahmoud abu Hunoud, a Hamas militant who was wounded in a West Bank shootout in which three Israeli soldiers died and a fourth was injured. Abu Hunoud was sentenced for "forming military cells and affording them weapons and ammunition," said Palestinian Atty. Gen. Khalid Qidra. Abu Hunoud escaped the Israeli raid last Saturday in the village of Assira Shamaliya and later surrendered to Palestinian officials.

After thieves broke into Mahmoud Asad Abdallah's house a year ago, the elderly Palestinian armed himself and began patrolling his roof at night, determined to protect his family and his property. On Wednesday, his vigilance cost him his life. Israeli troops shot to death Abdallah, a 72-year-old American citizen who lived for years in the U.S. Virgin Islands, during a predawn raid on his village.