IDF troops kill Palestinian near Hebron holy site

Israel Defense Forces soldiers on Wednesday killed a Palestinian at the entrance to a contested biblical shrine in the West Bank city of Hebron.

An Israeli policeman was lightly wounded by a bullet fragment, an IDF spokesman said. The shooting occurred next to the Tomb of the Patriarch, a site revered by Muslims and Jews as the burial place of their forefathers.

According to an initial investigation, Border Police troops stationed in the area opened fire on the man during an arrest procedure when he refused to heed their orders to stop.

"They ordered the suspect to halt for inspection, and when he didn't stop, they went through the arrest procedure, cocking and aiming their rifles," said the IDF spokesman. "When that didn't work, they opened fire at the suspect. He was killed."

Asked if the Palestinian had been armed, the military spokesman said he did not yet know. There was no immediate comment on the incident from armed Palestinian factions which have kept a relatively low profile in the West Bank as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pursues a security drive.

Palestinians at the Tomb, a site holy to Muslims and Jews, reported hearing some 30 shots fired in Wednesday's incident.

Hebron is the second-largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, which Israel captured along with Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War. It is also home to several hundred hardline settlers whose tiny enclave abuts the Tomb and is closely guarded by Israeli forces.

Meanwhile, Israel Air Force warplanes on Wednesday bombed six smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip near its border with Egypt, wounding four people.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack, which came hours after militants in the Gaza Strip launched three mortar shells at the western Negev.

Israeli aircraft often attack the tunnels because of concerns that Gaza's militant Hamas rulers use them to smuggle weapons and explosives into Gaza. Palestinians also used the tunnels to bring in food, clothes, fuel and even livestock.

Israel launched an offensive against Hamas in Gaza in late December after eight years of Palestinian rocket fire into Israel. That operation caused widespread damage in Gaza, which remains subject to a blockade by Israel and Egypt aimed at weakening Hamas.

The three shells that hit the Negev marked a recent upsurge in border violence after a two-week lull.

The shells exploded in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, causing neither casualties nor damage.

The attack came one day after the New York Times published an interview with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal, whose Islamist group controls Gaza, in which he said gunmen in the coastal strip had unilaterally ceased cross border attacks.

Over the weekend, the Israel Air Force bombed five tunnel systems used for smuggling arms and other goods from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

The air strikes were launched in response to renewed rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

Sources in the Israel Defense Forces say the targets were destroyed.

At least two Palestinians died in the raids, according to emergency workers in the Gaza Strip. The dead are believed to be the first fatalities in fighting between Israel and the Palestinians since an air strike against tunnels in March