NABLUS, West Bank, 9 November 2005 — A teenager was killed and three other Palestinians wounded by Israeli gunfire late yesterday in two separate outbreaks of violence in the West Bank, Palestinian medical and security sources said. Fifteen-year-old Mohammed Abu Salha was shot dead by Israeli troops as he and at least two other teenagers tried to plant a bomb near the northern West Bank town of Nablus, the sources said. His body was discovered by his family after Israeli troops left the area.
Nablus residents earlier heard a loud explosion, thought to have been caused when the bomb went off prematurely, before Israeli troops rushed to the scene and opened fire, security sources said.
Two 15-year-old boys, one with a gunshot wound to the stomach and another with a bullet in the leg, were taken to a Nablus hospital.
An Israeli Army spokeswoman said soldiers opened fire at Palestinians planting an explosive device outside Nablus just as an army patrol was to pass down the road. Soldiers identified “several hits”, she told AFP. Further north, a member of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad was seriously wounded when troops opened fire on his car near the town of Tubas, medical and security sources said.
Samer Al-Ghul, a 26-year-old member of the Al-Quds Brigades, was being treated in hospital with serious stomach wounds after being hit near a checkpoint just outside the town, 10 kilometers north of Nablus. The soldiers opened fire after Ghul failed to stop, the security sources said.
Abu Salha’s death brings to 4,880 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. Over three-quarters of the victims have been Palestinians.
Meanwhile, a festering crisis between Likud party rebels and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was well placed yesterday to force early elections depending on a leadership ballot in main coalition partner Labour.
An embarrassing defeat in Parliament on Monday over appointing two Cabinet ministers has left the Sharon camp crunched between the prospects of early elections or finding a way to reassert control over the party.
“This measure will have consequences,” Sharon told Parliament on Monday, even as MPs ratified his appointment of chief ally Ehud Olmert as finance minister at a separate vote. Leading the rebel camp is the charismatic darling of Israel’s right and Sharon nemesis, Benjamin Netanyahu, who makes no secret of his desire to drive the premier out of the Likud leadership and become prime minister himself.
