Israeli troops kill Palestinian in base break-in

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who forced his way into a West Bank army base on Thursday, the military and Palestinian security officials said. An army spokeswoman said he was shot when he crashed a tractor through the perimeter fence of the camp. The Palestinians said he died of his wounds in an Israeli hospital, and named him as Yusef Ahmed al-Radaydeh, 30. They said he was the brother of Mirii al-Radaydeh, shot dead by Jerusalem police in March 2009 after he rammed a bulldozer into a bus and a police car, injuring two patrolmen in what police called a "terror" attack. The army said Friday's incident occurred at a base in the West Bank neighbourhood of Al-Ram, adjacent to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, but did not confirm media reports that he died of his wounds. "He managed to get inside the base and due to the danger to soldiers, troops opened fire at him and reported a hit," the spokeswoman told AFP. State-run Channel One television said that the man initially stopped at the gate to ask a guard to let him in and when the soldier turned away to seek authorisation, he drove into the fence. Israeli defence officials have noted an uptick in Palestinian attacks of late but have said they do not see recent incidents as directly related or indicative of another Palestinian uprising. On Sunday the Shin Bet domestic security service said it had arrested three Palestinian suspects in the brutal murder of a Jewish settler in the West Bank that had initially been labelled by police as a militant attack. But interrogators have so far not been able to confirm that the killing was in fact politically motivated. Suspected Palestinian attackers wounded a nine-year-old Israeli girl in a settlement near Ramallah on October 6, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in separate incidents in the West Bank on September 21 and 22. Source: AFP