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GAZA CITY, July 6: Three Palestinians were reported killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called for the international community to mobilize for peace in the Middle East.
A Palestinian woman, Randa al-Hindi, 40, and her two-year-old daughter Nour were killed near Gaza City on Saturday when Israeli troops opened fire on their car, Palestinian medical sources said.
Earlier, Palestinian medical and security sources told AFP a Palestinian man was killed in his home when Israeli troops opened fire on houses in the southern Gaza Strip.
Khamees Shurab, 45, died after being hit in the head, chest and leg when Israeli troops fired heavy machine-guns on a group of houses in the eastern outskirts of Khan Yunis, they said.
The firing came from an area close to the Jewish settlement of Morag, they said, adding that a number of other houses in the area were lightly damaged.
The Israeli army claimed it was not aware of any such incidents in the area.
In the West Bank Palestinian sources said Israeli armored vehicles on Saturday surrounded the hospital in Jenin in a search for two Palestinian militants who had attacked their forces.
Army officers told the hospital’s deputy director Nader Arshed that they would track down the fighters in the hospital, which neighbors the refugee camp where bloody battles took place in April, hospital officials told AFP.
The deputy director replied that no fighters were inside.
Witnesses reported that at least some of the estimated ten armored vehicles had opened fire in the area with heavy machine guns.
Witnesses said the manhunt was launched after the two militants had fired an explosive at an Israeli patrol from a building under construction near the hospital.
CONDEMNED: Palestinian officials on Saturday condemned as “a crime” the reported shooting of a mother and her two-year-old daughter by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip.
Randa al-Hindi, 40, and her daughter Nour were shot dead early Saturday in a taxi driving near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, south of Gaza city, Palestinian medical sources said.
Another car was also hit in the incident but it was unclear if there were injuries in the second vehicle.
In a statement, the Palestinian leadership denounced Israel’s reoccupation of seven of the eight main cities in West Bank since June 19 that was triggered by a wave of suicide bombings in Israel.
“What happnes in our territories, our towns and our villages is the equivalent of state terrorism,” the leadership said.
It demanded the diplomatic quartet of the European Union, Russia, United Nations and the United States “confront this Israeli terrorist aggression.”
Israeli chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP, “We hold the Israeli government responsible for this criminal act”, Erakat told AFP.
Nabil Abu Rudeina, adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, also called for the trial of “the authors of this new Israeli crime.”
BUSH: Bush said last month that Palestinians should get rid of a leadership “compromised by terrorism” at elections planned for next January and carry out other reforms. They could then rely on US support for creating their own state.
But Bush made no mention of an international conference on the Middle East which had been floated earlier by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.—AFP
