A Palestinian citizen in al-Khalil faces a wall with his hands cuffed as an Israeli soldier and a Jewish settler stand watching

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, January 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two Palestinian resistance activists killed an Israeli soldier and wounded two others before one of them was shot dead by Israeli occupation troops in an attack on a West Bank Jewish settlement Friday, January 17, Israeli military sources said.

The pair managed to infiltrate the hard line settlement of Kiryat Arba outside the flashpoint West Bank city of al-Khalil before coming under fire from Israeli troops posted nearby, who killed one and launched a manhunt for the other, Agence France-Presse (AP) quoted the sources as saying.

Around 600 hard-core Jewish settlers (according to foreign pacifists and reporters, always heavily-armed and on the rampage most of the time) live in al-Khalil, guarded by Israeli soldiers, separating them from the 120,000 Palestinian population of the city.

The killed Israeli was "a soldier", according to al-Jazeera Satellite Channel.

However, Israeli military sources claimed he was a "civilian", without specifying whether or not he was a Jewish settler, regarded as a legitimate target by Palestinian resistance groups.

According to Israeli daily Ha’aretz, a large number of Israeli troops and police forces were on their way to the scene of the attack.

Attempted Operation Aboard Booby-trapped Raft

Earlier Friday, a Palestinian activist was killed when a naval Israeli patrol boat fired at his small, booby-trapped boat, causing it to explode, a leaflet issued by the resistance group Hamas in Gaza said.

The leaflet named the killed activist as Mahmoud al-Jeemasi, of Hamas military wing Ezz el-Dine al-Qassem in his mid-twenties. It said al-Jeemasi had been on a mission to carry out a resistance attack.

The leaflet spoke of a small boat, contradicting an initial report by Israel’s army sources that the navy had fired at an unmanned, booby-trapped raft.

"We did not see anyone on the raft. We also fired in the air beforehand and nobody saw any person jumping into the water or move," Ha’aretz quoted an Israeli source as claiming.

The source had initially said no one was injured in the explosion, which occurred about four kilometers off the shore of the northern Gaza Strip settlement of Dugit Friday morning.

It happened in the same area where a booby-trapped Palestinian fishing boat rammed into an Israeli naval boat two months ago, killing the activist steering the boat and lightly injuring four Israeli soldiers.

Detentions Continue

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation troops, stepping up their aggressions overnight in the West Bank, abducted nine Palestinians, three of them wanted for questioning, Israeli Army Radio reported Friday morning.

Israeli military sources said that the army would continue intensive operations and would take action against resistance organizations so as to prevent anti-Israel attacks.