A Palestinian teenager has been shot dead as hundreds of stone-throwing youths and Israeli soldiers clashed, increasing tensions ahead of Israel's completion of its Gaza withdrawal.
As fighting flared on Tuesday, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told the army to show no pity towards Palestinians at checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.
It was the third straight day of violence in the southern Gaza Strip when Nimr Saduni, 17, and three friends charged into the abandoned Ganeit Tal settlement after two hours of confrontation with the Israeli army and Palestinian security forces.
Saduni and his friends raced past a coil of razor wire on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, becoming the first Palestinian civilians to enter the Gush Katif settlement bloc after Israel evacuated 8000 settlers from the Gaza Strip last month.
He pumped his fists in the air in triumph and cheered to his fellow stone-throwers below him on the area's sand dunes when a bullet knocked him to the ground, an AFP photographer witnessed.
Hundreds of teenagers had burned grass on the dunes and forced one Israeli tank to retreat under a hail of debris before the fatal shooting.
Saduni's death raised to at least 4823 the number of people killed since the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, started in September 2000. The vast majority of the dead have been Palestinian.
Later, a homemade rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip on a field in southern Israel, where it exploded without causing any casualties, Israeli public radio reported.
The clashes followed two days of violent protests over unemployment that left 20 wounded in Khan Yunis.
Israel has stripped Gush Katif of many of its watch towers and blast walls in the countdown to its handover of the settlement bloc to the Palestinians in mid-September.
The bloc's newly found vulnerability had tempted teenagers to hurl stones at Palestinian police and Israeli tanks, with the hopes of being the first to get inside the property.
Israeli defence minister
Mofaz, on a Tuesday visit to the northern West Bank, told army officers to show no mercy to Palestinians at checkpoints.
"Do not have pity on anyone, even if this will cause traffic jams and evoke indignation, because the security of Israel’s citizens is our primary interest," he was quoted by his office as saying.
Checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territory are one of the main sources of friction between the Israeli army and Palestinian residents.
Mofaz also told troops to adopt "zero tolerance" towards Jewish settlers guilty of stirring up conflict in the West Bank.
PHOTO CAPTION
Palestinians chant anti-Israel slogans during a funeral march for four Palestinians who were killed in a blast in Gaza September 6, 2005. (Reuters)