MIDDLE EAST: Israeli troops killed two Palestinians north of Jerusalem yesterday during the heaviest protests to date against the construction of Israel's controversial West Bank security barrier.
In other violence, an Israeli soldier was killed by two Palestinian gunmen who attacked a Gaza border crossing and were themselves then gunned down. The Israeli army said troops also killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Ramallah who threw a petrol bomb at them.
Demonstrations flared at a number of sites outside Jerusalem where workers are clearing land for sections of the barrier - decried by the Palestinian leadership as a land grab but defended by the Israeli government as an essential obstacle to suicide-bombers. In the worst of the violence, at the village of Bidu, hundreds of local residents converged on Israeli troops guarding workers building the barrier. Dispersing the locals, who hurled stones at them, the troops used large quantities of tear gas and rubber bullets and, according to Palestinian sources, also fired live ammunition. The two men killed were named as Mohammed Rian (30), a father of two, and Zcharya Id, a father of three, both local villagers. Several Palestinians were injured, including pensioners and children.
Local Palestinians say that up to 10 villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem will be cut off by the barrier or have access to their farmland immensely complicated. Israeli officials acknowledge that, in the Jerusalem area, there are sections where population placement makes it impossible to find a route between Israelis and Palestinians, and that the barrier will therefore run, instead, between Palestinians and Palestinians.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague this week held three days of hearings on the legality of the barrier, and will issue a non-binding decision that will be referred to the UN General Assembly.
The Gaza attack began in the early morning, when two Palestinian gunmen, who had crossed into the heavily guarded joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial zone at the Erez border crossing, opened fire and threw hand-grenades at a group of soldiers, killing 25-year-old reservist Amir Zimmerman.
Israel had tightened security after a female Palestinian suicide bomber killed four Israelis there last month, and the army was last night trying to establish how its defences were breached again.