mercredi, novembre 22, 2006

Actualité - IOF Kill three Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Abducted Red Cross Employees Released in Khan Younis

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed three Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including a 17 year-old boy and an elderly, Palestinian medical sources said.

One Palestinian man was killed as a result of the Israeli ongoing shelling at the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning, Palestinian sources reported. The man was identified as Massad Abu Massiq, 25 from Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier, 17-year-old Rakan al-Nusairat was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers Monday evening near Jericho checkpoint. According to eyewitnesses, the boy had a plastic gun in his hand when he was shot.

Medical sources said that the Israeli army prevented ambulances from approaching al-Nusairat or offering first aid, and he was left to bleed to death.

Moreover, an elderly Palestinian was killed and nine others wounded, including two Hamas activists, in an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City, medical and security sources have said.

The 70-year-old, who lived in the Zeitoun neighborhood where a warplane slammed at least one missile into the vehicle, died of his wounds after the raid in which he lost both legs and arms.

In another development, two Italian citizens, working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, were free after ten hours of their abduction by an unknown group in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip,

The Salah Ed Deen Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, and Ahmad Hallas, a Fatah leader, conducted mediation of the abductors and managed to secure the release of the two Italians.

Spokesperson of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, Simon Schorno, identified the two employees as Claudio Moroni, 36, and Ginmarco Onorato, 63.

After they were freed, the two were moved, under the protection of Palestinian security personnel, to the home of Fatah leader Ahmed Hallas before they were moved to the Beach Hotel.

Following the abduction, the Red Cross suspended its field work in the Gaza Strip, Eyad Nasser, Red Cross spokesperson stated. He added that the employees would continue to work in Gaza, but inside their offices and would only intervene in urgent “life and death matters”.

(Palestine Media Center)

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