GAZA CITY, 5 October 2005 — Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian woman yesterday morning when they opened fire at a group of people waiting on Hawara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said.
They added that Israeli soldiers prevented ambulances to enter the area where the woman received several live rounds in her legs and was left bleeding for more than an hour and a half until she died.
Medical sources in Gaza City identified the woman as Hiafa Hendia, 37, a mother of six children.
Israeli security sources said that the Palestinian woman stabbed a female soldier from the military police. The soldier was lightly wounded in the face.
Meanwhile, calm returned to the Gaza Strip yesterday after deadly internecine clashes and police protests over dire insecurity problems.
“Things are calm and we hope that everyone will respect the law and public order,” Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khossa told AFP.
On the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, the streets of Gaza City were quieter than usual with no one seen carrying weapons other than security officers.
Amid spiraling insecurity following Israel’s pullout from the Palestinian territory on Sept. 12 after a 38-year occupation, the Interior Ministry last week began implementing a law banning the carrying of weapons in public.
Despite pledges by the Palestinian Authority to tackle the growing lawlessness as kidnappings and armed clashes become increasingly frequent, the situation has only worsened.
Three Palestinians, including a policeman, were killed and more than 50 others wounded late Sunday in clashes pitting police officers against members of Hamas.
Sunday’s incidents were the first deadly internecine clashes in Gaza since Israel’s army withdrew from the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, dozens of armed policemen burst into the Parliament building in Gaza City to protest against the Palestinian Authority’s failure to clamp down on deteriorating insecurity and Sunday’s killing of their colleague.
The parliamentary session, conducted via video-conference link between deputies in Gaza and in the West Bank town of Ramallah, ended with MPs ordering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to appoint a new government.
They voted overwhelmingly for the Palestinian Authority leader to reshuffle his Cabinet within two weeks, accusing the current administration of being incapable of restoring security.
Abbas is acutely aware that failure to put the Gaza Strip in order will weaken international support for the creation of an independent state also incorporating the occupied West Bank.
However, he has not been obliged to fire his Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, after MPs discarded a formal censure motion against the government which would have seen the premier step down immediately.
— With input from agencies
