Three Palestinians killed in the West Bank, Gaza, a detente at Rafah crossing
News reports in Gaza said that the Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and injured another and then detained him when it opened fire at a group of workers seemed to be trying to cross from Sofia crossing to the east of Rafah city late evening yesterday.
On Friday, the Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian activist presumed to be a member of the Islamic Jihad while he was trying, with another colleague to launch an attack by a mortar at Ghoushe Katif settlement to the south of Gaza. A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that the soldiers inspected the area and found the body of one of the two men and a 40- Kg explosive in an adjoining area. It seemed the second activist fled the scene of the attack.
The occupation forces also killed one Palestinian near Ariel settlement to the north of the West Bank. A spokesman for the occupation army said that its forces monitored two Palestinian approaching soldiers near Salfit city to the south of the settlement and opened fire at it and killed one of them and detained the other.
News reports also said that two armed Palestinians tried yesterday evening to fire RPJ shelling at the nearby Rafih settlement to Tel al-Sultan quarters in Rafah to the south of the sector. He added that the monitoring force in the settlement fired one shelling that hit a Palestinian ( 50 year old) while sitting with friends before a house which was greatly damaged as a result of the bombardment.
Regarding the crisis of the Palestinians held at Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, some 1660 Palestinians returned back to Gaza on Friday evening after the Israeli authorities opened the crossing which had been closed for three weeks.
News reports quoted the official in charge at the Egyptian border guard as saying that some " 400 Palestinians registered in the entry lists to the self rule areas are waiting for crossing the border." Since July 18, the Israeli army closed the crossing before 3400 Palestinians under the pretext that the Palestinian resistance digs a tunnel leading to the crossing and then to blow it up.