AL QUDS, Feb 16: Eight people were killed in Al Quds and Gaza City, three of them in a suicide bomb attack, three Palestinians shot dead by Israeli troops, a Hamas leader blown up in his car on Saturday and an Israeli soldier killed on Friday night.
Three people were killed and 30 injured on in a suicide bomb attack on a shopping centre in a West Bank Jewish settlement, police spokesman Superintendent Gil Kleiman told AFP.
He said initial reports indicated that two of the dead were Israeli women, while police were examining the possibility that the third person was a Palestinian suicide bomber who blew himself up in the shopping mall in Karnei Shomron settlement.
The blast occurred at 7:30 pm (1030 PST), just half an hour after the shops reopened following the end of the Shabbat, or Jewish day of rest. Rescue workers said the mall was just filling up with teenagers out for Saturday night when the explosion hit.
GAZA KILLINGS:In Gaza City, a Hamas member on Israel’s most wanted list was blown up in a car explosion just hours after Israeli troops launched a series of raids into the Gaza Strip and killed three other Palestinians.
An Israeli soldier was also killed on Friday night when Palestinians opened fire on a roadblock north of the West Bank town of Ramallah, with the escalating violence casting a shadow over new efforts by the United States and Egypt to broker a ceasefire.
The Hamas man, Nazeeh Abu Assubaam, was killed when the car he was driving was blown up in the West Bank town of Jenin.
Three passers-by, including a two-year-old boy, were also wounded in the blast.—AFP
