Four Palestinians Dead in West Bank as Hamas Official Says "Israel Living on Borrowed Time''

10/12/2003| IslamWeb

A 16-year-old Palestinian resident of a West Bank refugee camp was shot dead by Israeli troops Tuesday evening, Palestinian hospital officials said. Faris Ibrahim Muhammad, from the Qalandiyah refugee camp between Ramallah and Jerusalem, was among youths throwing stones at nearby Israeli soldiers, and was shot in the head by the troops, the sources said. Also Tuesday, three Palestinians were killed in an explosion in a house in the village of Tuffah, close to the West Bank city of Hebron. Sources said the three were Hamas activists trying to make a bomb. Meanwhile, Hamas political chief Khaled Mashal told a London-based daily Israel would soon cease to exist, but the State of Palestine would allow Jews to stay on as a minority in the land. In an interview with Al-Hayat he added that Israel was a state living on borrowed time and in the end it would disappear. "We know that this will not happen overnight, but rather in steps and stages," the Hamas official said. The way to achieve this, according to Mashal, is to force Israel to accept a "just and lasting" peace, which would include the flooding of the Jewish state with millions of "Palestinians refugees." "Whoever will peer behind the veil of those who are representing the rights of the Palestinians inside the 1967 borders will also find Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheva, Nazareth, Tzefat and others." **PHOTO CAPTION*** An Israeli soldier patrols the Old City of Hebron. (AFP/Hazem Bader)