Scattered violence in Mideast kills 4
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Palestinian militants ambushed an Israeli couple traveling early Sunday in the northern West Bank, killing the man, Israeli military officials said.
The gunmen opened fire on the couple's vehicle outside the Jewish settlement of Mevo Dotan, the officials said. The couple was heading toward Israel.
The man's wife was treated for shock but otherwise was unharmed, Israeli medical officials said.
The Web site of the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a military offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the killing.
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has attacked military and civilian targets in Israel and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. State Department has designated it a foreign terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, Israeli border police shot and killed a Palestinian near Jerusalem after he led police on a car chase through the city's outskirts and then tried to evade arrest, an Israeli police spokesman said.
The man was apparently transporting Palestinian laborers who did not have permits to work in Israel, he said.
Police had signaled the van to stop and gave chase when the driver refused, police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said. A border policeman was lightly injured when he tried to stop the vehicle.
Police shot the driver when he tried to flee on foot, after calling on him to stop and firing warning shots into the air, Ben-Ruby said.
And in the West Bank, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian gunman who opened fire on them as he attempted to infiltrate the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha near Nablus, military officials said.
In Gaza, Palestinian militants in Khan Yunis fired at least one crude rocket that landed in the back yard of a house in the Jewish settlement of Gadid, the army said, but it did not explode and there were no injuries.
Another rocket landed in an open area in Israel just north of Gaza, the army said.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli troops shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian man in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, Palestinian sources said.
The Palestinian sources said the man was among a group of demonstrators throwing stones at Israeli troops.
Israeli forces entered the area around Beit Hanoun last Monday in an attempt to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets at nearby Israeli towns.
An Israeli military source said a violent crowd of Palestinians approached and threatened Israeli troops, who used riot-dispersal methods, which included firing at a leading figure considered to be inciting the crowd.
Late Sunday, Israeli helicopter gunships fired rockets at three metal workshops in Gaza, slightly wounding five Palestinians, according to Palestinian sources.
The helicopters fired two missiles at a workshop in Jabaliya in northern Gaza and wounded four people, the sources said. Another Palestinian was wounded when two missiles hit a workshop in the Zatun neighborhood of Gaza City, they said. A single missile hit a third workshop in Nusserat, south of Gaza City, the sources said.
An Israel Defense Forces spokesman confirmed two of the strikes. The attack in Zatun was intended to a disable a weapons factory the Palestinians were rebuilding after a previous strike, the spokesman said. It was being used by Hamas and other terrorist organizations to produce a variety of weapons, notably Qassam rockets, he said.
The factory in Jabaliya was used to produce Qassam rockets made by Fatah and Hamas, he said. The spokesman said he had no information about a strike in Nusserat.
