Palestinian woman shot dead in West Bank

Palestinian security officials said the soldiers killed the 35-year-old woman when they fired at a taxi that tried to circumvent…

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian woman at a West Bank roadblock today.

Palestinian security officials said the soldiers killed the 35-year-old woman when they fired at a taxi that tried to circumvent an Israeli checkpoint south of the West Bank city of Hebron. An Israeli army spokeswoman declined to comment.

In a separate incident Israeli police said they foiled a Palestinian attempt to set off bombs in a northern Israeli city.

In the northern Israeli city of Afula, police chased through the streets after a Palestinian who people said they saw planting a bomb in an open-air market.

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Later, police said they found a second bomb in a nearby bank. Both bombs were safely defused.

The shooting of the Palestinian woman came a day after Israel demolished some 26 homes in the Gaza Strip, an action that was condemned internationally. Israel said it destroyed the houses to deny cover to gunmen who attack its troops on the Gaza-Egypt border.

A State Department official in Washington said the United States had repeatedly urged Israel to stop demolitions of Palestinian homes, calling such operations provocative.

The European Union said the Israeli house demolitionscomplicated further the efforts of the international community and the parties themselves...to end the crisis.

Meanwhile in the West Bank town of Qalqilya, armed Palestinians killed a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel, Palestinian security sources said.

Palestinian Authority officials have called on citizens to allow the courts to deal with suspected collaborators. In the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday a Palestinian man was sentenced to life in prison with hard labour for collaboration.