HEBRON, West Bank, 14 March 2003 — Israeli soldiers and a helicopter gunship shot dead two Israeli armed guards in the West Bank yesterday after mistaking them for Palestinians, the army said.
It said the friendly-fire incident began when troops stationed at the settlement of Pnei Hever, southeast of the city of Hebron, spotted a suspicious vehicle approaching from around a nearby hill.
“The unit ordered the car to stop, and after identifying the occupant as armed, shot and killed him,” an army statement said. “After hearing the gunfire, a second armed man ran off (from the hill). He was shot dead by a helicopter gunship.”
The army said its troops had been on alert for an “attack” by Palestinian fighters, who have carried out a spate of shootings in the area over recent days, including the killing of two Jewish settlers and a soldier.
Military sources said the two men shot yesterday worked as security guards at a private installation on the hill. The army said it had begun an investigation into the shooting.
Palestinians waging a 29-month-old uprising for statehood have often accused Israeli soldiers of being trigger-happy at checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The army has insisted soldiers follow strict rules of engagement that include verbal warnings and warning shots when challenging suspects.
Israel has beefed up its forces in Hebron after a spate of attacks. Army radio said reinforcements had been deployed in Hebron in preparation for a major “anti-terrorist” operation, including wide-scale house searches to hunt down men behind a series of attacks recently.
On Monday, Hamas carried out an ambush that killed an Israeli soldier and injured five others. One Hamas fighter was killed in the shoot-out. The group said the ambush was to avenge the Israeli helicopter attack in Gaza that killed one of its co-founders and most senior leader, Ibrahim Maqadmeh, and three of his bodyguards over the weekend.
Shortly before that strike, Hamas had claimed a shooting that left a settler rabbi and his wife dead in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron.
Elsewhere in the West Bank troops arrested 18 Palestinians near the northern city of Nablus, Israeli military sources said, including two men “who were preparing to carry out attacks”.
And in Gaza, a Palestinian man critically injured in an Israeli Army raid last week died in hospital of his wounds.
Of the 1,945 Palestinians killed by the Israeli Army in the 29-month uprising against Israeli occupation, 365 were innocent civilians, including 130 under the age of 16, according to an official Israeli report released yesterday by the daily Haaretz.
The statistics, compiled by the Ministry of Defense, showed that among the 235 adults killed who had no link to “terrorist activities,” there were numerous women and elderly people.
The army and the Defense Ministry spokesmen denied being behind the report, although they did not deny its existence.
According to a tally by AFP, 3,075 people have been killed as a direct result of the violence, including 2,300 Palestinians.
The Israeli document said 441 Palestinians, around 22 percent, were members of the resistance movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have carried out the majority of bombings in Israel.
Another 324 people, around 17 percent, were members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and its armed offshoots, while 329 were members of the Palestinian security services. Sixty-nine were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).
Another 22 percent, or the remaining 417 people, were not linked to a particular faction but were suspected of “involvement in violence.”
