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Israeli troops kill Palestinian woman, 95-witnesses

MS NBC NEWS, December 3, 2002

Israeli soldiers on Tuesday shot dead a 95-year-old Palestinian woman who was taking a taxi home after a medical check-up in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.

They said troops opened fire on the van the woman was riding in when it tried to bypass rubble that Israeli forces had used to block the road between Ramallah and her home village of Atara.
      On the diplomatic front, U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer said in a speech likely to rankle the Israeli government that Jewish settlers living on occupied land did not represent a ''national consensus'' in Israel.
      Israeli military sources said soldiers shot at the tyres of a Palestinian vehicle travelling on a prohibited road north of Ramallah after the driver ignored orders to halt.
      Israel's Channel Two television said a single soldier had fired 17 bullets while he was running, making accurate aim difficult.
      Medics said the woman, Fatima Hassan, who was on her way home from a medical clinic, was hit by a bullet in the back and that two other women in the taxi were wounded.
      Hassan was believed to be the oldest Palestinian killed since the start in September 2000 of an uprising for independence.
      Israel has reoccupied Ramallah and most other major West Bank cities, sealing off their main entrances, following a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings in the Jewish state.
      One of the passengers in the van, Kifaya Qadadha, 40, said troops fired without provocation.
      ''I was scared to death because there was so much shooting,'' she said from her hospital bed while being treated for a leg wound. Another passenger was critically hurt.
      Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said: ''We condemn this war crime of killing in cold blood a 95-year-old woman and we hold Israel fully responsible.''

U.S. AMBASSADOR SLAMS JEWISH SETTLEMENTS
      Speaking at a security conference near Tel Aviv, Kurtzer said: ''Today , settlers represent a particular point of view in Israel about the future of the occupied territories; they do not represent a national consensus.''
      The U.S. envoy said that ''Israel needs to make choices and define priorities,'' and repeated what he called Washington's long-standing opposition to ''settlement activity.''
      Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is leading a right-wing government into a January 28 general election, has said no new settlements were being built but existing ones must be expanded to cope with the ''natural growth'' of their populations.
      Opinion polls have shown that in return for peace with the Palestinians, a majority of Israelis would back the dismantling of some of the 145 settlements Israel has planted on territory seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
      At least 1,693 Palestinians and 668 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian revolt began.
      The violence has surged despite calls by the United States for calm in the region as it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.