OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 13 March 2003 — An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian were killed in a gun battle near the West Bank city of Tulkarm yesterday in what the army said was an ongoing series of raids in pursuit of Palestinians. It said soldiers were pursuing a group of Palestinians when they came under fire in a field on the outskirts of the Palestinian-ruled village of Saida.
A soldier and one Palestinian were shot dead and another soldier was wounded in the exchange of fire, the army said. Troops captured two of the gunmen and arrested seven wanted men during the raid.
Islamic Jihad, one of the main groups behind a wave of bombings against Israelis during a 29-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence, said its fighters were involved in the clash.
In the nearby city of Qalqilya, Palestinians said soldiers shot and wounded six people, including two members of the mainstream Fatah faction who the army said tried to resist arrest. Palestinian witnesses said the arrest began when troops in uniform and plain clothes surrounded the entrance to an office building in the center of the city.
Israeli troops also arrested a close aide of Marwan Barghuti, the jailed head of the Fatah movement in the West Bank, in Ramallah.
Israeli forces surrounded the building housing the offices of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and Palestinian Interior Minister Hani Al-Hassan, senior Fatah member officials added.
They ordered everyone out and arrested Mahmud Hasib, 38, a member of the Fatah committee for Ramallah and director of Barghuti’s office, they said.
Israeli soldiers have carried out almost daily raids into Palestinian towns and villages in the past year and reoccupied much of the West Bank since the revolt began in September 2000 after talks for an independent Palestinian state broke down.
