Israeli Troops Kill Two Palestinians
Gulf News
25 May, 2003
Two Palestinians, one of them a mentally handicapped man, were shot dead by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip yesterday as Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon prepared to submit the Middle East road map for peace to a cabinet vote today.
Security officials said troops shot dead an armed former Palestinian police officer allegedly trying to infiltrate Israel from the central Gaza Strip
An Israeli army spokesman said Ghassan Abu Shareh, 26, "opened fire with a Kalashnikov rifle before being shot dead by soldiers".
Sources on both sides also said an unarmed Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in another part of the territory.
Palestinian medical sources said Hamdi Abu Khussa, 20, was mentally handicapped and that he was hit by machine gun fire. They took possession of his body from the Israeli side.
They said he was from the Bureij refugee camp in the centre of the territory near the town of Deir El Balah.
His body was found yesterday morning, an Israeli military spokesman said.
Israeli attacks continued as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak expressed his hope yesterday that Israel's cabinet would approve - and not "torpedo" - the Middle East peace road map.
Mubarak, whose country may host a critical Middle East peace summit, was speaking during a joint Press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Cairo.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said on Friday that he accepted the road map drafted by Russia, the US, the UN and the European Union.
A Russian Foreign ministry spokesman said Moscow and the road map's other international sponsors would have to work closely to push the peace process forward.
The spokesman said in a statement yesterday that Palestinian backing for the process meant that a "real possibility had appeared to overcome the current deadlock".
He said Moscow "welcomes the emerging progress, and hopes the Israeli cabinet will approve the road map".
Also yesterday, Israeli troops arrested two Americans and a Palestinian peace activist in a northern West Bank refugee camp, their International Solida-rity Movement (ISM) said.
US nationals Mike Johnson, Matteo Bernal, and Palestinian Osama Qashoo, were detained while leaving the Tulkarem refugee camp, an ISM spokeswoman said.
"Witness accounts indicate they were helping children on their way to school" in the early morning, she said, citing other ISM members in the area.
She said the children were stranded between Israeli military vehicles and that the ISM activists helped to escort them. The three were told on being arrested that they were in a "closed military zone".
The ISM expects there will be an attempt to deport Johnson and Bernal, the spokeswoman said.
The Israeli army raided at dawn yesterday both the town of Tulkarem and its refugee camp, Palestinian security sources said.
A column of 50 tanks, troop transport trucks and jeeps, carrying several hundred soldiers, poured into the Palestinian camp and town, the security sources said.
Israeli military radio said the operation was aimed at netting fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups. The two US activists were detained as they filmed the operation, according to the army radio.