Israeli army shoot boy who breaks curfew

A 12-year-old Palestinian boy, breaking curfew to buy cigarettes for his father, was killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank last night, a witness said.

The army said it was looking into the shooting.

Abdel Salam Samreen, 12, was killed by several shots to the chest as he was walking on the street near his home in Ramallah.

His mother, Wafiqa, said her husband had sent him to a nearby grocery store to buy cigarettes. She said five minutes after her son left the house, someone came to tell her he had been shot.

“He was there, lying on the street with six shots in the chest,” she said, crying.

Amar Samir, a witness, said the boy was crossing a street when he saw an Israeli tank nearby.

“He ran away and tried to hid behind a wall, and they started shooting at him,” Samir said.

Two suicide bombers' homes were demolished by Israeli army bulldozers today - less that 24 hours after another Islamic militant blew himself up at a bus stop in northern Israel, killing himself and a policeman.

The explosion ended a six-week lull in suicide attacks on Israeli civilians. An Israeli motorist and a Jewish settler also died in Palestinian shooting attacks yesterday.

Israel had attributed the relative calm to its strong military presence in the West Bank; Israeli troops control six of eight main population centres, and have been confining hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to their homes since mid-June.

Israeli police commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki said today that Palestinian militants have been trying hard to break out of the army’s chokehold.

“We need to be grateful for every day that passes without an attack,” he said.

The militant Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for yesterday’s suicide attack. The group did not identify the bomber, apparently to try to shield his family from Israeli reprisals.

Israel has been using increasingly tough measures against militants’ families.

Israel has demolished some three dozen homes of terror suspects, and has expelled a brother and sister of an alleged bombing mastermind to the Gaza Strip.

In Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem, bulldozers today razed the homes of Osama Nidbahar and Nabil Khaldaiya who blew themselves up on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall last December, killing 11 people and wounding 80.