November 8, 2001	Thursday	Shaba’an 21, 1422

TEL AVIV, Nov 7: The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday described as barbaric the Israeli army’s killing of three Palestinian guerillas who P were wounded and then shot dead.

“It is something that is totally unacceptable. It is really barbarian to do such things on injured people who should be taken care of by nurses and ambulances,” Paul Grossrieder, ICRC director-general, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah after meeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Grossrieder said the ICRC would file a complaint with Israel over the killings, echoing a call by the Palestinian Authority for an international inquiry.

Izz el-Din al-Qassam, the military wing of the Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack on Israeli troops near Nablus in which the three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed.

“It is among the worst violations one can imagine from a humanitarian point of view,” Grossrieder said of the alleged summary executions. “I hope that it will be the last time that such a thing happens.”

Grossrieder said his organization would dramatically increase staff in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “in order to follow better and to report more accurately, precisely and more completely on what is going on”.

“This is the sign that we are taking it extremely seriously,” he said.

BITTER DISPUTE: On Tuesday, Kamal Hinawi, a Red Crescent ambulance worker, said that when he arrived at the scene of the gunbattle with another medic, an Israeli army officer told them there were three Palestinians wounded.

Shortly after that, he saw about six soldiers standing on a hill about 20 metres away, in a circle and opening fire.

“I did not see them (the wounded) with my own eyes as they were uphill from me,” Hinawi said. “But the Israeli officer had said there were two wounded and one alive. But a short while later he told me that all of the three terrorists are dead.”

volunteer for suicide bombings: Thousands of mourners turned out in the West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus on Wednesday to bury five Palestinians killed the day before, with many in the crowds offering to serve as human bombs against Israel.

Around 5,000 people attended the funeral of two Palestinian leaders who were blown up in their car in the northern town of Jenin late on Tuesday.

And an estimated 3,000 Palestinians followed the bodies of three guerillas who died in a fierce gunbattle near Nablus, south of Jenin.—Reuters/AFP