Israel Troops Kill Two Palestinians; Arab Youth Dies

Israeli troops killed two Palestinians on Saturday as Arabs marked the 24th anniversary of the first PLO attack against Israel. A boy died of injuries from an earlier clash, and 10 people were wounded at his funeral, Arab reports said.

Nine more people were reported hurt in clashes with soldiers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where residents observed a general strike called by Muslim fundamentalists.

The army imposed a curfew on all eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and several neighborhoods, confining its 650,000 Palestinians to their homes in anticipation of increased violence on “Fatah Day.” Today is the anniversary of the first attack against Israel by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Fatah faction on Jan. 1, 1965.

The army brought reinforcements into the occupied lands and ordered nearly 1,200 West Bank schools closed for a week.

In Nablus, four soldiers in uniform commandeered a Mercedes with local license plates and later opened fire from the car on youths gathered on the street outside the home of 22-year-old Saki Teeti, witnesses told an Arab reporter.

The shots struck Teeti in the chest, and he later died at the city’s Al Ittihad Hospital, Arab doctors said.

In Arab East Jerusalem, 14-year-old Anwar Albahti of the West Bank village Shuweika died at Mukassed Hospital, doctors and army officials said. The youth was shot in the head during a clash with troops Dec. 7.

In Shuweika, hundreds of residents, some masked, joined Albahti’s funeral procession.

Troops opened fire to disperse the crowd, wounding 10 Shuweika residents ranging in age from 16 to 31, hospital officials said. The army confirmed eight wounded.

In the West Bank village of Beit Rima near Ramallah, residents attacked an army patrol, an army spokesman said. Troops opened fire, killing one man, he said.