Israeli troops kill Palestinian woman

Israeli troops patrolling the West Bank city of Nablus today shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian woman, witnesses and a hospital said.

However, the army denied it had troops in the area at the time.

Witnesses said the woman, named as Beriza Aminawi, was shot in the heart as she stood on the roof of her house. Hospital officials said she had been hit by a live round.

Aminawi went up to the roof of the seven storey building to call her younger brothers who were tending to birds the family keeps on the roof when she was hit, her uncle, Hussam Al Bahsh, said.

He said soldiers in a jeep driving on a nearby hill overlooking the building had fired four bullets at the building.

The army said that while its troops had entered the city earlier in the day and repeatedly clashed with Palestinian youths, they had not been in the area where Aminawi was killed.

The youths threw stones and bottles at the troops and burnt tyres in the roads. The soldiers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Three people were treated in hospital for gas inhalation, officials said.

Troops also arrested two armed Palestinian militants as they drove through Nablus, the army said.