April 23, 2007	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 05, 1428

NABLUS (West Bank), April 22: Israeli troops on Sunday killed two Palestinian militants and a teenager in the occupied West Bank, bringing to nine the death toll from the bloodiest weekend of violence in months.

Karim Zahran, 17, was shot dead while throwing stones at Israeli troops near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian security sources and medics said.

The Israeli army said troops fired at a man in a crowd who was about to throw a Molotov cocktail at soldiers.

In the northern West Bank town of Nablus earlier, the army shot dead two gunmen from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Palestinian security sources and the army said. The men were killed after troops surrounded a house in which they were holed up in Nablus.

The Palestinian sources identified the dead men as Fadel Nur, 23, and Amin Lubadi, 25, and said they were killed during heavy exchanges of fire with the Israeli troops.

An army spokeswoman said the two died during exchanges of fire with troops who came to arrest the pair. A militant from the radical Islamic Jihad group was arrested during the operation, she said.

Al-Aqsa Brigades vowed to retaliate for the killings.

“We do not cooperate with the Israelis and we use only the language of arms, as it's the only one they understand,” Al-Aqsa official Nasser Al-Kharaz said.

He also called on Abbas “to cease all contacts and meetings with the Israelis as these do not bring anything and give the world the illusion that Israel speaks of peace.”

The Islamist movement Hamas, the senior partner in the government coalition with Fatah and independents, also called for Abbas to break off contacts with the Israelis and “get behind the choice of the people and the resistance.” “We call on Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) and all other Palestinian resistance factions to unite and use all means to respond to the massacres of the occupation,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.

Another Hamas spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, called on “the international community to pressure the Israeli government so it stops its crimes against the Palestinian people.” And Islamic Jihad called for “an escalation in the resistance” and to ignore “the calls for calm launched here and there.”

Six Palestinians, including a teenaged bystander, were killed by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank and Gaza on Saturday.

The dead included an Islamic Jihad militant killed when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at his car in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, minutes after two Israelis were wounded by a rocket fired at the Jewish state from the territory.

The other deaths all occurred in the West Bank where a 17-year-old girl, three Al-Aqsa militants, and a Palestinian policeman were killed during raids against militants in and around the northern West Bank town of Jenin.

Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas condemned the Israeli attacks and called for Arab leaders to intervene.—AFP