WEST BANK: Top Palestinian militant killed by undercover Israeli unit

Israeli undercover troops kill a senior Palestinian militant of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade group in the West Bank town of Jenin. Israeli troops disguised as Palestinians ambushed and killed a senior Palestinian militant in the occupied West Bank on Monday (April 17), a Palestinian security source said. The source said Ashraf Hanaysheh, a leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group in President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, was killed by an undercover unit near Jenin, in the northern West Bank, which is a militant stronghold. An Israeli military source said a unit of paramilitary border police operating on a main road "identified the wanted (man) as a senior operative" in the area and surrounded the vehicle in which he was travelling. Residents said the undercover troops drove a blue civilian car that cut off Ashraf's vehicle from the road. One resident, who said he witnessed the killing, said: "They pulled him out of his car alive, they pulled him by his neck, put him on the ground and shot him." Israeli troops frequently raid Palestinian areas in the West Bank looking for militants. Elsewhere in the territory, four Israelis were wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack outside the Jewish settlement of Naaleh, an Israeli military spokesman said. The al-Aqsa brigades claimed responsibility for the shooting outside Naaleh, but it was unclear whether the Israeli operation near Jenin was carried out in response to the attack. The violence coincided with the annual Palestinian Prisoners Day, in which vigils and rallies are held in the West Bank and Gaza to press Israel to release 11,000 jailed Palestinians.

ITN Source | April 17, 2007

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