A top military leader of the radical Islamic group Hamas has been killed in a gunfight near Bethlehem after shooting dead an Israel soldier sent to capture him.
The gun battle in the village of Mrah Rabah, south of Bethlehem, erupted as a unit of Israeli reservists approached the house of Ali Elyan (27), a senior leader of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, before dawn.
The Hamas leader appeared on the roof of his house and opened fire at the troops, killing a sergeant and injuring another soldier, the army said.
The Israelis fired and killed him, then demolished his house as a warning to other militants. The army has destroyed some 200 houses belonging to slain or wanted militants in a bid to deter future attacks.
Israel's internal security service, Shin Beth, said Ali Elyan was involved in organising a series of suicide bombings which killed around 50 people, including a bus bombing in Jerusalem last June that sparked the reoccupation of most of the West Bank.
Hamas has spearheaded deadly suicide bombings, and has been the target of increasing frequent and deadly raids by the Israeli army into the Gaza Strip, the stronghold of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad.
The death toll from those Israeli raids continued to rise as more people died of their wounds today. Nabil Idwidal (20) died from injures sustained when Israeli armoured vehicles pushed into the Nusseirat refugee camp near Gaza City early yesterday.
He was the eighth victim of the Israeli incursion, which also killed a three-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy. Israel was targeting a leader of the radical group Islamic Jihad, who was killed in the raid and whose militant brother was arrested.
Another Palestinian man died of wounds he sustained when he was shot and wounded by Israeli forces during a funeral for another Palestinian killed by Israeli fire, Palestinian hospital officials said.
AFP