Israeli hits Gaza three times in 24 hours

Israeli helicopters fired two missiles at a Palestinian security post in the town of Khan Younis on Sunday in the third military strike in the Gaza Strip in 24 hours.

In other violence, Israeli soldiers shot dead an unarmed Palestinian who had been shopping for school books for his children when he tried to evade a checkpoint in the West Bank, Palestinian hospital officials said.

Israel troops also killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy during a confrontation in the Gaza Strip.

Some 680 people, including more than 520 Palestinians and some 150 Israelis, have been killed in violence since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule erupted more than 10 months ago after peace talks stalled.

The Israeli army said the helicopter attack on the Force 17 security service post and the tank shelling of a police post in the same area were in retaliation for a Palestinian mortar attack in which a Jewish settler was wounded in the Gush Katif settlement bloc on Sunday.

Late on Saturday, at least two Israeli missiles slammed into another Palestinian security post in Gaza hours after Palestinians launched seven mortar bombs at a Jewish settlement in the strip.
In all, seven Palestinians were wounded in the attacks.

The army had no comment on the West Bank killing of Mu'in Abu Lawyeh, 38, who had been walking on an unpaved road to avoid the Israeli military checkpoints that seal off Palestinian towns.

Five Palestinians were also wounded, the officials said. Abu Lawyeh was returning to his village from the West Bank city of Nablus with school supplies he had bought for his children, the hospital officials said.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Israeli army had killed Abu Lawyeh "in cold blood". Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters also exchanged fire near the West Bank towns of Jenin and Hebron, where the army said an Israeli officer was wounded.

The bloodshed overshadowed a push by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for talks on implementing a U.S.-brokered ceasefire after nearly 11 months of fighting since the start of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

Peres said on Saturday that Israeli officials were "conducting conversations" with Palestinian counterparts on the truce, accepted by both sides in June but otherwise unheeded.

But senior Palestinian officials dismissed the remarks as a publicity stunt. "The Israeli government has cut off all political contacts and is trying to fool the world by pretending there are contacts with the Palestinians," President Yasser Arafat's aide, Nabil Abu Rdainah, told Reuters.

In Rafah, southern Gaza, thousands of Palestinians chanting for revenge, among them hundreds of children, joined the funeral of Muhammed Abu Arrar, 14, hours after Israeli troops killed him near the frontier with Egypt, a flashpoint in the uprising.

Palestinians said the boy had been throwing stones. The Israeli army said he was among a group of youths who had fired on a routine border patrol.

"The force returned fire when it identified the shooters. The army regrets that the Palestinians send youths to throw grenades and fire at army forces from populated civilian areas," an army spokeswoman said.