Israeli troops shoot dead Palestinian man, destroy homes

(1 Dec 2002)
1. Various night shots of town with AUDIO of gunfire in background
2. Men with weapons in street
3. Women in street wailing
4. People looking at destroyed car
5. Various of destroyed house and people standing around
6. Various of dead man in morgue
7. Wide shot of house destroyed
8. People looking at house

STORYLINE:

About 30 Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles backed up by two Apache helicopters moved into a Gaza town on Saturday killing one man and demolishing the homes of three Islamic militants.

Palestinian witnesses said there were fierce exchanges of gunfire between Palestinians and Israeli troops during the three-hour incursion which knocked out the town's power transformer.

In the early hours of the morning the troops withdrew from Beit Lahiya about 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of Gaza City.

The dead man was named as 32 year old Mahmoud Saleh Al Maarani, a Palestinian policeman who, according to witnesses, was an innocent bystander, watching events from the balcony of his home. The Israeli army claims he was shooting at the soldiers.

Israeli security sources said the army demolished the family homes of three Islamic militants, among them Hisham Dab, an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber who killed 20 Israelis in a March 1996 attack in Tel Aviv.

They said the other two homes belonged to the families of Ahmed Hamuda, a Hamas gunman who killed three Israeli soldiers in a June attack on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and to Jihad Masri, also of Hamas, killed during an attack on a settlement in December last year.

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