Teenager killed in Israeli West Bank incursion

NABLUS, Saturday, (AFP)

A Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli fire Saturday after troops mounted an incursion into the main northern West Bank city of Nablus, security and medical sources said.

Muntasseir Suleiman Okkeh, 16, was shot in the back, the sources said.

At least six more Palestinians were reported wounded in the incident, which occurred when troops opened fire on a group of people throwing stones.

An army spokeswoman said "our forces arrived in Nablus Saturday morning to carry out arrests, and there were exchanges of gunfire with Palestinian activists.

"Molotov cocktails were thrown at the soldiers, and they fired warning rounds before targeting their attackers," she added.

In the incursion, troops surrounded a four-storey building and used loudhailers to call on two activists of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of moderate Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement, to surrender and for other residents to leave the building.

After Sufyan Kandil and Amin Lubadi refused to give themselves up, the troops started using two bulldozers to demolish the building.

Troops were still at the site early Saturday afternoon.

In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, troops arrested four members of the Abu Shamanala family near the Egyptian border town of Rafah, witnesses said.