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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org, for Monday, September 23, 2013
Two Israeli soldiers killed in the past 48 hours in the occupied cities of Hebron and Qalqilia, the Israeli army places Hebron under siege and kidnaps 15 Palestinians from the West Bank, the details coming up, stay tuned.
On Monday, two Palestinian armed resistance groups claimed responsibility for killing an Israeli soldier in the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday night.
The two groups, Al-Aqsa Brigade, and Ahrar Al-Jaleel Brigade said in a joint statement that they have killed this officer few hours after another Palestinian man killed an Israeli soldier in Qalqilia, to send a message to Israel that they “will defend Jerusalem for ever”. The statement was published on several social media websites.
They added that their fighters managed to shoot and kill an Israeli soldier, using a sniper rifle, killing him instantly as he stood along with other soldiers near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
The soldier was initially seriously injured when he was shot in the neck by a Palestinian sharpshooter, close to the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, Israeli medical teams moved him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Al-Aqsa Brigades, once an armed wing of the Fateh movement of president Mahmoud Abbas, was dismantled by the Palestinian Authority, and some of its members became Palestinian security officers.
Following the shooting, the Israeli military carried out wide search in the city of Hebron, and detained hundreds of Palestinians. Many of them were released shortly after.
This soldier is the second to be killed in the West Bank in 48 hours, as on Friday a soldier was killed in Qalqilia, in the northern part of the West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Yaalon, stated in a twitter message that the army will act “swiftly and firmly” against what he called “terrorists who try to harm Israelis”.
His statement came following a meeting with senior Israeli military and security officers in Tel Aviv.
One Palestinian was killed by Israeli army fire last week, and at least four, including three children, were injured in at least 49 invasions carried out by the army in the occupied territories.
In other news, at least fifteen Palestinians were kidnapped in the early hours of Monday morning when Israeli troops invaded a number of West Bank cities and villages. The invasions were mainly in the northern West Bank city of Nablus and in Hebron and Ramallah.
In related news, a group of extremist Israeli settlers invaded Palestinian orchards in a number of villages in the Jenin district, in the northern part of the West Bank, and harvested them.
The Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA) has reported that the settlers came from three illegal settlements built on Palestinian lands that belong to residents of Jalboun village, east of Jenin.
And that’s all for today from the IMEMC News; this was the Monday, September 23, 2013 news round-up from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For more news and updates please keep visiting our website at www.imemc.org. Today’s report has been brought to you by George Rishmawi
