GAZA CITY, Dec 6: Three Palestinian teenagers were killed on Friday night by Israeli soldiers in two separate incidents in the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli military spokesman said two young militants, shot dead at a crossing point between the eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, had been carrying explosives and were planning to carry out an attack.
Ashraf Abdelsalam al Hayya, 19, and Abdelkarim Sukkar, 18, were both members of the Hamas group, Palestinian sources said.
Their bodies were recovered by a Palestinian medical team close to the Nahal-Oz crossing point and taken to the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
Witnesses said sustained gunfire was heard in the area on Friday night.
Several grenades and a 25-kilogram explosive device were found on the militants, dressed in uniforms similar to standard Israeli army issue, the military spokesman said. “An attack was at stake,” he added.
A third teenager was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, family and security sources said.
Jihad Mussa al Akhras was sprayed with gunfire by Israeli troops after he approached the fence snaking along the Gaza Strip and Egyptian border, the sources said.
Relatives said the army initially refused to let them recover the body of Akhras, who worked as a porter at the freight terminal in Rafah, but that they were later able to do so.
A brother of the victim was also killed by troops in Rafah under similar circumstances last year, the family said.
An Israeli military spokesman said soldiers had shot a Palestinian in the area, but did not confirm that he had died.
Israeli troops deployed along the border with Egypt are subject to frequent Palestinian attacks, with about 20 in the past week alone, he said.
In the northern West Bank, around 20 Israeli jeeps stormed into Siris village, which lies between Nablus and Jenin, on Saturday.
They encircled a house and blew open the door, seizing a wanted member of the radical Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.
The Brigades is a largely autonomous and hardline offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah movement. It has carried out scores of anti-Israeli attacks in the intifada against occupation, which broke out more than three years ago.
EU pledges aid: The European Union agreed on Saturday to provide the Palestinian Authority with 32 million euros in aid to weather an economic crisis and help government reform efforts.
The funds are in addition to some 300 million euros $364.4 million dollars) budgeted for the Palestinian territories, via a United Nations refugee agency and the Palestinian government.
The agreement was signed in the West Bank city of Ramallah by representatives of the European Commission and Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad.
Some 10 million euros ($12.2 million dollars) of the new aid is earmarked to set up an electoral commission to implement plans to hold Palestinian elections, a key reform sought by backers of the U.S. and European-sponsored road map plan for peace.
Another 15 million euros ($18.2 million) of the aid package will go toward providing emergency support for small businesses, and the remainder to shore up the Palestinian judiciary system, a commission statement said.
News of the aid follows a warning issued by the World Bank on Tuesday that the Palestinian economy is in steep decline with Israeli closures, checkpoints and sieges having paralysed trade and investment throughout a three-year-old uprising.
Israel has said it takes these measures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to prevent suicide bombers from reaching its towns and cities and has pledged to ease restrictions if the bombings are brought to an end.—AFP