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Daring Shooting Attack in Gaza Highlights Weekend of Bloodshed

June 19, 1989
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An Israeli soldier was shot and slightly wounded Sunday in a daring attack near Israel Defense Force head quarters in Gaza.

The IDF officer was fired upon from a passing car as he was walking toward the offices of the civil administration.

The soldier, Capt. Yisrael Barshai, a 42-year-old reservist serving in the civil administration suffered only a slight injury. But another bullet from the car hit an Arab, who was badly wounded in his hip.

The incident was one in a series of bloody events in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. Four Palestinians were killed and over 30 wounded during clashes with IDF soldiers at Gaza refugee camps.

Three were shot at the Rafah camp, and one, a 15-year-old Palestinian youth, was killed at the Khan Yunis camp.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, a 17-year-old Palestinian youth died Sunday. He had been shot by an IDF patrol after he refused to identify himself and ran away from the soldiers.

The army demolished eight houses during the weekend and sealed off another three. The houses were owned by suspected members of Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist organization.

A group of Jewish leftist activists, led by Knesset member Yossi Sarid of the Citizens Rights Movement, expressed solidarity Sunday with the family of a suspected terrorist, whose house the IDF plans to demolish.

Standing near the house, Sarid said that demolition of homes is not a common practice in democratic countries and its practice here is detrimental to the foundations of democracy in Israel.

The group of activists visited the family in the house, although the army had tried to prevent them from doing so. The visitors said they had not known the area was declared a closed military area.

In Jerusalem, a firebomb was thrown Sunday at a border police unit patrolling the Old City No one was hurt.

In Haifa, a synagogue was set on fire over the weekend. Police arrested four Arab suspects, all of whom deny any connection with the arson.

A fire was set in the same synagogue five months ago, after an arson attack on a mosque in the village of Ibtin.

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