- GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli
troops killed four Palestinians including three teenagers in the Gaza Strip
and West Bank on Wednesday, saying they had been on their way to attack
Jewish settlements.
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- The three youths were shot after sneaking into a fenced-in
Israeli buffer zone in northern Gaza after dark, approaching the Elei Sinai
settlement armed only with wire-cutters and a knife in an apparent suicide
mission, the army said.
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- "They were dressed in dark civilian clothes and
were advancing in a crouch, commando-style," said Colonel Ofer Shafran,
based in the area. "We found two wire-cutters and a knife on their
bodies."
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- Near the West Bank city of Nablus, troops fired on a
Palestinian who the army said was making his way between the Yitzhar and
Immanuel settlements. Explosives in his bag went off, killing him. "We
believe the terrorist's bomb was intended for one of the nearby settlements,"
an army spokeswoman said.
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- Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza have frequently
come under attack during a more than two-year-old Palestinian uprising
for independence. At least 1,759 Palestinians and 675 Israelis have now
died in the fighting.
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- Palestinian security officials did not immediately comment
on the reported West Bank fatality, but said the three killed in Gaza --
one aged 15, the other two 16 -- had no known affiliation to militant organizations.
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- RELATIVES RUN TO HOSPITAL
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- Distraught and dumbfounded family members flocked to
Shifa hospital in Gaza City after the youths' bullet-riddled bodies were
brought in.
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- "So far, the family has no idea what happened, and
what circumstances made the children go to that area," said Mohammed
Dawas, a relative of two of the dead teenagers.
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- "We never expected such a thing to happen. The children
were like normal children."
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- On at least two previous occasions, Palestinian minors
have been killed carrying out spontaneous, poorly-armed "missions"
against Jewish settlements in Gaza. In response, Palestinian communal leaders
urged children to stay out of the fighting.
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- Also on Wednesday, the army said its forces had demolished
the Nablus home of a Palestinian who bombed a fast-food stand in the central
Israeli town of Herzliya in June, killing a girl, as well as the home of
a militant in Khan Younis in Gaza. Palestinian witnesses in Khan Younis
said 10 Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers were involved in the
overnight operation to blow up the house of Yassin al-Agha, a member of
the Islamic group Hamas who was killed by troops last month.
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- Palestinians and human rights groups call Israel's house
demolition policy a form of "collective punishment" that violates
international humanitarian law.
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- The army says the measure is used to deter Palestinians
from joining ranks of militants behind a suicide bombing campaign that
has killed scores of Israelis since the Palestinian revolt began in September
2000 after peace talks stalled.
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- "The destruction of the houses of militants is a
message to suicide bombers and their accomplices in terror attacks that
their deeds have a price," the army said in a statement.
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- The rate of suicide attacks has declined in recent months
and the army attributes this in part to demolitions of homes belonging
to families of militants.
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