Israel confesses to killing 365 innocent Palestinians

* 4 Palestinians killed in clashes
* Army guns down two Israelis by mistake

JERUSALEM: Of the 1,945 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in the 29-month uprising against Israeli occupation, 365 were innocent civilians, including 130 under the age of 16, according to an official Israeli report released Thursday by the daily Haaretz.

The statistics, compiled by the ministry of defence, showed that among the 235 adults killed who had no link to “terrorist activities,” there were numerous women and elderly people.

Of the children and minors killed, the officials said some were shot after throwing petrol bombs at Israeli forces and a few even involved in exchanges of fire.

But they said there was “no justification for the death of a child aged under 16, even if they were throwing Molotov cocktails, and that should lead to an inquiry”.

Israeli troops killed four Palestinians in the village of Tamoun near Jenin in the West Bank on Thursday when an army incursion in a village turned into a gun battle, military sources and witnesses said.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers and a helicopter gunship shot dead two Israeli armed guards after mistaking them for Palestinian gunmen, the army said.

“Perhaps this tragedy will bring home to Israelis the laxity of the army’s open-fire regulations in the territories,” said Lior Yavne, spokesman for an Israeli rights group.

A Palestinian man critically injured in an Israeli army raid in the Gaza Strip last week died in hospital of his wounds, Palestinian hospital officials said.

An Israeli man and his son were seriously wounded when an unknown gunman shot them as they were parking their car in west Jerusalem, police said. —AFP/Reuters

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