The Israeli army killed two Palestinian nurses in Gaza in a day of targeted attacks and indiscriminate killings that left at least six people dead. About two dozen Palestinians were arrested in raids across the West Bank.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza named the two nurses, who worked in a geriatric hospital, as Abed al-Karim Anwar Lubbad (22) and Omar Saad al-din Hussan (21). They bring to at least 22 the number of Palestinian nurses and doctors killed since the start of the intifada in September 2000. Two other people were seriously wounded.
The centre said Israeli forces surrounded a house metres from the al-Wafa hospital for the elderly.
”During the house raid, an Israeli soldier fired a live bullet at a window on the first floor of the hospital, which is clearly marked in Arabic and English. The bullet hit a nurse in the chest and exited to hit another nurse in the chest as well, thereby killing the two,” it said.
”According to a janitor in the hospital, who had accompanied the nurses, they had gone to check on a patient who was crying out in pain. As soon as they entered the room, a shot was heard. The two men fell to the ground. They were bleeding. Doctors made efforts to save their lives, but Lubbad died immediately and his colleague died shortly after him.”
The Israeli army gave a different account of the killings, saying its helicopters had fired ”warning shots” in support of troops who entered Gaza City in search of a ”wanted terrorist”. The military claimed the two dead men were in a car when they were shot.
But the hospital’s director, Munir al-Bursh, dismissed the claim. ”Bullets went through the window and killed them. There’s no doubt,” he said.
Dozens of medical staff led hundreds of mourners at their funerals. One held up a sign that read: ”End this bloodshed and protect the human angels.”
The centre accused Israeli forces of failing in their legal duty under the Geneva conventions to protect medical personnel and institutions during raids, and called on Britain and other signatories to the conventions to hold Israel accountable.
The army also launched raids on Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramallah, arresting about 24 people including a person described as a ”wanted terrorist” who was planning a suicide bombing in the next few days.
Near Nablus, Palestinians shot dead two Israeli soldiers and wounded two others. Amir Ben-Aryeh (21) and Idan Suzin (20) were killed as the gunmen opened fire and threw hand grenades at a military base in a converted restaurant at the Shomronim neighbourhood, home to an ancient biblical sect of 650 Jews. Both soldiers were buried yesterday afternoon.
Israeli radio said that as the shooting began, soldiers were drilling for an attack of that nature. The army killed the two gunmen.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was retaliating for the army’s shooting of Samar Zorba a few hours earlier. The 18-year-old died in a confrontation between soldiers and unarmed protesters.
In northern Israel, a policeman killed an Arab Israeli after he stabbed another policeman and tried to grab his gun. In another incident, a soldier shot an unarmed Palestinian near Taibeh after the army said he had failed to heed calls to stop.
The army says it is investigating how a 65-year-old woman was crushed to death when Israeli soldiers blew up her Gaza home on Wednesday.
The military said it destroyed Kamila Sha’id’s house in al-Maghazi refugee camp because her stepson had killed two Israelis in an attack on a Jewish settlement two years ago.
Israel’s statistics bureau revealed yesterday that the violence of the past two years has had a sharp impact on immigration, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1990, the year that the flood of Jews from the collapsing Soviet Union began.
Dozens of Russian immigrants have been among the victims of suicide bombings. – Guardian Unlimited Â