Boy, 11, Among Half a Dozen Killed as Israeli Soldiers Look for Militants

Israeli soldiers on the lookout for Palestinian militants killed at least six people Friday -- among them an 11-year-old boy -- in outbreaks of violence across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

Four of the dead were killed in three incidents in Gaza that occurred within hours of one another Friday morning.

Palestinian witnesses said that 11-year-old Mahmoud Kayed and one or two friends were out trapping birds near a fence bordering an Israeli kibbutz when Israeli troops spotted them and opened fire. An exploding shell sent shrapnel into the boy’s chest, hospital officials said. A companion was injured.

Palestinian sources said the friends were using nets and string to catch birds, a popular pastime among Gazan youths. The Israeli military said its soldiers had noticed three “suspicious figures” carrying what appeared to be electrical wire of the sort that is used in planting bombs.

Because the area is off limits to Palestinians and prone to attacks by militants -- 15 attacks have occurred in the past month -- Israeli forces were obliged to shoot, regardless of the age of the targets, an army spokesman said. He added that Palestinian youths had taken part in previous attacks.

No explosive devices were found, the spokesman said.

Earlier in the morning, before dawn, Israeli troops killed in a firefight two men who were apparently trying to plant a roadside bomb near the Palestinian refugee camp of Khan Yunis, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. The militant group Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade said the men, both in their 20s, were their operatives and belonged to the same family. Eight people were injured in the shootout, Gaza hospital officials said.

Not long afterward, a member of the Islamic radical group Hamas was killed in another firefight as Israeli troops rumbled through another Gaza neighborhood, Palestinian sources said. Hospital officials said the victim was then crushed by an Israeli armored vehicle.

In the northern West Bank city of Jenin, a hotbed of militant activity, Israeli forces arrested a man suspected of plotting the suicide bombing of a northern Israeli restaurant last month that killed more than 20 people. Israeli military sources said Amjad Ahmed Abeidi, 35, was planning more attacks, including a suicide bombing to take place aboard a Jerusalem bus.

As the soldiers pulled out, backed by helicopters, Palestinian militants reportedly opened fire on them, triggering a confrontation in which a 20-year-old suspected member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade was fatally shot. Two youths, ages 13 and 15, were wounded.

In Nablus, Israeli gunfire killed a 23-year-old Palestinian man in the Balata refugee camp, witnesses said. The army said soldiers on patrol in the area returned fire at someone who hurled three explosive devices at them.

Friday’s bloodshed came as U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sent a letter praising the efforts of the authors of a Mideast peace plan that is an alternative to the so-called road map backed by the White House.

Some Palestinian officials and Israeli participants in the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s have drafted an initiative known as the Geneva agreement, which sets out a plan for an independent Palestine as well as solutions to some of the toughest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the division of Jerusalem. The U.S. plan leaves such issues until the final stages of negotiations between the two sides.

Powell wrote the leaders of the Geneva plan, former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo, that “projects such as yours are important for sustaining hope and understanding.”

However, Powell added that the Bush administration remained committed to the road map, which the United States co-sponsored with the United Nations, Russia and the European Union.