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Red Crescent: Deadly West Bank clashPalestinians say 10 killed in earlier incursion
SILAT al-HARTHIYA, West Bank (CNN) -- A 22-year-old Palestinian man was killed and three more Palestinians were wounded in clashes Friday night with Israeli soldiers, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said. The Israel Defense Forces said it is checking the report. Silat al-Harthiya is located northwest of Jenin. The Friday night clashes came after 10 Palestinians -- including two U.N. workers -- were killed in fierce fighting when Israeli troops entered the El-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza in the pre-dawn hours Friday. Israel Defense Forces demolished the home of Palestinian militant Imam Salah Amin Shushaniya, whom Israel accuses of taking part in terrorism. The pre-dawn incursion involving dozens of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles prompted calls relayed over the local mosque's prayer speakers for Palestinians to resist the Israeli soldiers. According to the IDF, two gunmen opened fire on Israeli forces as they got near the house they intended to destroy and the Israeli forces returned fire. During continued fighting between the IDF and Palestinian gunmen, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired a rocket into a crowd of armed Palestinian men, according to the Israeli military. Nine people were killed in the violence and a Palestinian woman later died of her wounds, according to hospital sources. The IDF's Gaza division commander, Brig. Gen. Yisrael Ziv, said that most of the casualties in the operation were armed terrorists. Palestinian sources said nine people from two families were killed in a house near the suspected terrorist's home. U.N. relief workers killedIn addition to the two U.N. workers, Palestinian sources said three of those killed were members of the Palestinian national guard, two others were civilians, and three more were members of the Popular Resistance. The Popular Resistance movement is an umbrella group containing members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah Movement and the radical Islamic group Hamas. Hamas said among the three Popular Resistance members killed were two of its members. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency said two of its employees -- a man and a woman -- were killed. The man was identified as Usama Hassan Tahrawi, 31, an attendant at a boy's school who was standing in his garden. The woman was identified as Ahlam Riziq Kandil, 32, a teacher at the UNRWA elementary school in the camp. UNRWA said Tahrawi was hit by an Israeli missile fired from an attack helicopter. Kandil, said the agency, was hit by gunfire inside her home and later died at a hospital Peter Hansen, the UNRWA commissioner-general, condemned the killings by what he said was the "indiscriminate use of heavy firepower in a densely populated civilian area." He said UNRWA would conduct its own investigation into the incident. Shushaniya blamed for terror attacksShushaniya is blamed by Israel for a series of bomb attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers in Gaza. He took part in an attack on an Israeli tank in March that killed three Israeli soldiers and injured two others, according to Israel Defense Forces. Arafat described the incursion as a massacre and said the Palestinians would go the U.N. Security Council to ask for a special session on Israeli operations. "This Israeli massacre, this Israeli escalation, this terror should be stopped," said Arafat following a meeting with Christian and Muslim clergy in Ramallah. "We are going to go to the Security Council to ask for a special meeting to discuss this issue and to demand an immediate withdrawal. Shushaniya was not inside the house at the time of the Israeli raid, according to Israeli sources. The IDF said the specific purpose of the incursion was to destroy his house. CNN Correspondent Jerrold Kessel and Producer Michal Zippori contributed to this report.
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