MIDDLE EAST: A Palestinian boy was shot dead while stoning an Israeli tank yesterday and army bulldozers razed the family homes of two suicide bombers.
Palestinian doctors and witnesses said Israeli troops shot the 10-year-old boy, who was throwing stones at their tank in the West Bank town of al-Bireh. The army did not immediately comment.
In the town of Abu Dis on the edge of East Jerusalem, the army demolished the homes of two Palestinian youths who blew themselves up in Jerusalem last December, killing 11 people.
Israel says demolitions are intended to deter attacks in the two-year-old Palestinian intifada.
Palestinian officials have denounced Israel's measures against militants and their families as collective punishment.
On Wednesday Palestinians shot dead an Israeli motorist and a Jewish settler in separate attacks, and Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian they suspected of planning an attack.
An Israeli security source said that despite the bloodshed: "There is no change planned for our military measures."
The army said it arrested seven suspected militants in the West Bank, where it sent troops after suicide bombings in June and imposed curfews.
Witnesses in Jenin said the army razed the home of a family of which two members were killed in an Israeli anti-militant sweep in April.
The army said it knew of no demolition, but its forces blew up explosives in a house in the Jenin refugee camp.
At least 1,545 Palestinians and 594 Israelis have died in the violence which erupted in September 2000.
The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, said this week that "performance and hope" were needed to press ahead with new peace proposals outlined by mediators from the United Nations, United States, Russia and the European Union, the so-called "quartet".
But prospects of a breakthrough looked dim.
In a statement on its website, Islamic Jihad, a group dedicated to Israel's destruction, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing on Wednesday in which a Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop in the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.