Palestinian Woman Slain, 15 Wounded in Clashes With Israeli Soldiers

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian woman and wounded at least 15 other people in scattered clashes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday, hospital officials said.

The worst violence erupted in the isolated West Bank village of Jaba, north of Jerusalem. Doctors at Ittihad Hospital there said one woman was killed and 13 Palestinians were wounded after the army opened fire during a clash in the village.

The army said it was checking the report.

Also on Sunday, an army spokesman said a full investigation is being launched into allegations by three Palestinians that Israeli soldiers beat and partially buried them beneath stones earlier this month.

The three Palestinians, all residents of Arura, a West Bank village about 20 miles north of Jerusalem, said Sunday that the incident occurred May 18 when soldiers entered the village to make arrests.

“They bound my hands and dragged me to the top of a nearby mountain,” one of the residents, Hassan Abu Rahman Salah, said in affidavit published in Israeli newspapers on Sunday. “There they bound my legs together and covered me with stones up to my chest.”

He also charged in his affidavit that the soldiers hit him with rocks while he remained virtually buried beneath the stones for more than an hour.

In February, Israeli soldiers ordered the driver of a bulldozer to bury four Arabs in another West Bank village. Villagers rescued the four youths after the soldiers left.

Since then, three soldiers have been convicted for their part in the burial and sentenced to between 2 1/2 months and five months in jail.

Meanwhile, classes resumed for about 70,000 Arab junior high school students in the West Bank. Sunday marked the second stage of Israel’s plan to reopen 1,200 schools shut since February after officials charged them with being centers of anti-Israeli protests.

Before Sunday’s clashes, at least 185 Palestinians had been killed.

In the West Bank village of Bazzariya near Nablus, an officer shot and wounded a 19-year-old Palestinian after the youth attacked him with a cement block at a roadblock set up by protesters, the army said.

In the Gaza Strip, a 29-year-old man was shot in the chest when Israeli troops fired on stone throwers in the Shati refugee camp, the army added.

On Saturday night, youths threw stones and firebombs in nearby Jabaliya camp, and Israeli troops responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, according to Arab news reports.