April 25, 2008

At the Rafah and Erez crossings, 1,000s of Palestinians take part in nonviolent rallies calling on Israel to lift the siege. Late at night, the IDF makes an incursion into Bayt Hanun, surrounding and then making an air strike on the home of a wanted Hamas mbr., causing a fire and then shooting at occupants as they flee, seriously wounding a mother and teenage daughter, barring ambulances fr. reaching the area for 4 hrs. (during which time the girl dies); the IDF trades fire with Palestinian resistance mbrs. during the incursion, wounding 2 gunmen, 3 bystanders; the wanted Palestinian is not captured. In the West Bank, a Palestinian sniper fatally shoots 2 Israeli security guards at a factory in the Nitzani Shalom industrial zone nr. the separation wall, escapes; several groups including Hamas claim responsibility. The IDF conducts late-night arrest raids, house searches in Bethlehem, al-Bireh; fires rubbercoated steel bullets, percussion grenades, tear gas at Palestinian, Israeli, international activists taking part in the weekly nonviolent demonstration against the separation wall in Bil‘in (10s suffer tear gas inhalation) and beat demonstrators at a similar protest al-Masa'ra (lightly injuring 3). Jewish settlers fr. Taffuh settlement nr. Salfit enter the nearby village of Yasuf and fire on Palestinians, wounding 1. (WP 4/26; NYT 4/27; OCHA, PCHR 4/30)