GAZA CITY, (Islamweb & Agencies) -The latest casualty in on-going intiifadha confrontations in the Territories was a Palestinian who was killed near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Palestinians say the 39-year-old man was playing soccer near a Jewish settlement when Israeli occupation soldiers shot him dead.
Two Palestinians were meanwhile wounded late Thursday during an Israeli attack, involving heavy artillery, on the Yebna refugee camp near Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, medical and security sources said. (Read photo caption below).
The two Palestinians, one of them a 17-year-old youth, were shot and seriously wounded in the attack which took place after clashes between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, witnesses said.
Israeli tanks meanwhile shelled the town of Khan Younes in the Gaza Strip late Thursday, but there were no reports of injuries, Palestinian security officials said.
The Israeli occupation army launched the attack from positions around the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim using tank and machine gun fire, causing heavy damage.
In New York United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Israel's closest ally, the United States, have criticized an Israeli cabinet decision on Wednesday to step up a policy of deliberate killings of Palestinian activists wanted for alleged attacks against Israelis.
Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated on Thursday Washington's opposition to the practice in which more than 40 Palestinian activists have been killed since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September.
A spokeswoman for the French President Jacque Chirac said the French president voiced opposition to Sharon's public vilification of Arafat as ``a pathological liar and murderer'' and his comparison of the Palestinian leader to exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
``Weakening the President of the Palestinian Authority would be counter-productive and risks reducing his control of the situation still further,'' the spokeswoman said.
Chirac also told Sharon in their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris late on Thursday that Israel and the Palestinians should make ``maximum efforts'' to implement a blueprint for resuming peace talks drawn up by a committee led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Doctors operate on Muayad Farunyeh, 17, a Palestinian youth shot in the stomach with a live bullet by Israeli occupation troops while in the area of El Bireh, near Ramallah in the West Bank, Thursday July 5, 2001. The Israel Occupation Force claimed gunfire was directed towards the nearby Jewish settlement of Psagot, which faces El Bireh, and they returned fire. Palestinians said there were no clashes at the time. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)