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Israelis besiege westbank 3 killed Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09411151.htmhttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09411151.htm
09 Sep 2003 15:09:09 GMT
Israelis besiege West Bank militants, 3 killed
(Recasts with 3 Palestinians dead)
HEBRON, West Bank, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Two Palestinian Hamas militants and a child were killed during a shootout with Israeli troops in the West Bank on Tuesday, the army and witnesses said.
Thaer Syuri, 11, was hit in the head by shrapnel from an Israeli tank as he watched a firefight that began when soldiers besieged a building in Hebron, the Palestinian witnesses said.
But an Israeli military official later said the boy may have died in a fall.
A senior army officer said soldiers surrounded the house before dawn to arrest at least three Hamas members after an intelligence tip-off that they were plotting to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem.
After evacuating residents, the Israelis opened tank and machinegun fire at the two lower storeys, witnesses said.
Israeli military sources said the soldiers fired only after militants they were trying to persuade to surrender shot at them. Over 12 hours later, soldiers found two bodies in the house. The army said they were members of the Islamist group Hamas.
Another unidentified person in the building was evacuated to an Israeli hospital. A girl of 18 was also wounded nearby.
The Israeli army has stepped up operations to kill and arrest militants since a Hamas suicide bomber killed 22 people on a Jerusalem bus on August 19.
Palestinian officials say the raids have hampered their efforts to rein in militants for the sake of a U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "road map".
Hamas, sworn to destroying Israel, has carried out numerous bomb attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis in an almost three-year-old militant campaign against Israeli occupation.
The Palestinian boy was struck by tank shrapnel as he watched the gun battle from the balcony of a house about 100 metres (300 feet) away, according to relatives and doctors.
A senior Israeli military official said an officer visited the hospital in Hebron where the boy was taken and, from a look at his head injury, concluded he died from a fall from the balcony.
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