Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian village of Al-Qarara in the southern Gaza Strip today and soldiers imposed a curfew, Palestinian security sources said.
The army circled the village and called on residents over loudspeakers to stay indoors, the sources said. Residents said the owners of two homes were ordered to evacuate for their buildings to be demolished.
The incursion came shortly after troops shot dead a Palestinian gunman who fired at an Israeli car headed for the Gush Katif Jewish settlement bloc, in the same sector as AlQarara.
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Italian freelance photojournalist Mr Raffaele Ciriello poses with Mr Yasser Arafat in his office in Ramallah yesterday Photo: Reuters
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Earlier the United States urged Israel to exercise "utmost restraint" in its military operations in the Palestinian territories and expressed concern over the death by the shooting death of an Italian journalist by its troops.
US State Department spokesman Mr Richard Boucher said the death of freelance photographer Mr Raffaele Ciriello, the deaths of Palestinian humanitarian workers and civilians, and injuries sustained by other journalists demonstrated the need for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) to show discipline.
Mr Ciriello this morning was killed after being hit by six bullets from a machine gun mounted on an Israeli tank in Ramallah.
A French freelance photographer, who asked not to be named, was later wounded along with 30 others by Israeli fire, and an Egyptian journalist Mr Tareq Abdel Jaber said he was also wounded by Israeli fire in Ramallah.
The Israeli army said it did not know the circumstances in which the French photographer was wounded, or the Italian photographer killed, in the first death of a foreign journalist in the West Bank or Gaza since an earlier intifada against Israeli occupation in 1987.
"We must stress that Ramallah was yesterday declared to be a closed military zone to civilians," it said in a statement.
"Journalists who enter combat zones are perfectly aware that they are taking risks, particularly when they do so without coordination with the IDF," a military source said.
As Ramallah entered its second day under Israeli military occupation, medical supplies, food and fuel were dwindling, as Israeli tanks patrolled the streets, conducting a major offensive against Palestinian militants.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been escorting Palestinian ambulances yesterday, but had frozen the efforts due to the dangerous street battles.
AFP