NABLUS, 5 December 2006 — A young Palestinian was killed by Israeli Army gunfire in the West Bank town of Tulkaram yesterday, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
Mahmud Abdelal, 20, was fatally wounded when soldiers opened fire on a coffee shop which they encircled during an incursion into Tulkaram, they said, adding that a second Palestinian was wounded.
It was not immediately clear if Abdelal, who comes from the Gaza Strip, was a militant. An Israeli Army spokesman said the Palestinian killed was trying to flee with an armed Palestinian activist. The wanted activist, Anan Ayish, was seriously wounded and taken to an Israeli hospital, he said.
The soldiers fired warning shots before targeting the two Palestinians, according to the spokesman. The Israeli Army has been ordered to avoid “unnecessary friction” with the Palestinians while operating in the occupied West Bank, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said earlier yesterday.
“Instructions have been issued to avoid unnecessary frictions and to abstain from actions that could serve as a pretext” for Palestinian militants to break a fragile week-old truce in the Gaza Strip, Sneh told army radio. Abdelal was the sixth Palestinian killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank since the Gaza Strip took effect on Nov. 26.
