Palestinian fighter killed in raid
12/03/2008| IslamWeb
Israeli soldiers have killed a Palestinian fighter belonging to the Islamic Jihad group near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, witnesses say.
Saleh Karkur, 22, was killed on Wednesday in an exchange of gunfire with troops who had surrounded a house in the village of Saida, close to Tulkarem.
An Islamic Jihad official said Karkur belonged to the group.
Al Jazeera's correspondent Nour Odeh said that after the firefight, a bulldozer began to demolish the house without any forewarning, and recovered the body from the rubble.
An Israeli army spokesman acknowledged that troops were operating in Saida, while a spokeswoman said she was looking into the incident.
Israeli forces also carried out raids in several other towns in the West Bank on Wednesday.
The raids took place in Jenin and Qalqiliya besides Tulkarem.
So far, residents of these towns and surrounding villages report that Israeli forces have detained at least 12 Palestinians, Odeh said.
Large operation
In Qalqiliya, the Israelis were involved in a large military operation, deploying in all its neighbourhoods to conduct random searches of residents' homes, Al Jazeera said.
Wednesday's death brings to 6,310 the number of people killed since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to a separate AFP count.
Since the Israelis and Palestinians revived their peace talks in late November after a seven-year freeze, at least 347 people have died in violence between the two sides, most of them Gaza fighters, according to an AFP tally.
An Israeli soldier covers a weapon on a tank at an army base near Kibbutz Kissufim just outside the Gaza Strip March 10, 2008.