November 8, 2003	Saturday	Ramazan 12, 1424

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GAZA, Nov 7: Israeli troops killed a 10-year-old Palestinian boy and three militants in Gaza on Friday as the army eased a West Bank blockade in a bid to bolster Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie ahead of possible peace moves.

The boy, Mahmoud al-Qayed, was killed by a shell fired by an Israeli tank in the Gaza Strip near the Israeli agricultural community of Nahal Oz while hunting for birds with a net tied to a string, a witness and medics said.

An Israeli military source said soldiers opened fire at suspicious figures handling an electric cable in an area where explosives are often planted against troops, and that one Palestinian was hit while two others fled.

The source said that while soldiers later found no explosives had been placed there, the zone is shut to Palestinian civilians.

Near Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp, soldiers killed a gunman after a bomb exploded close to a patrol, causing no casualties, the Israeli military source said. The militant Islamic group Hamas said he belonged to its armed wing.

The bodies of two other Palestinians, members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were recovered near the town of Khan Yunis after soldiers shot at Palestinians suspected of planting a bomb.—Reuters