Israelis kill 8-year-old Palestinian boy in Nablus riot

Israeli soldiers reportedly shot dead an eight-year-old Palestinian boy in the West Bank yesterday, while the newly elected Labour Party leader said he supported the decision to reoccupy Bethlehem after last week's suicide bombing.

According to witness accounts from the West Bank city of Nablus, Jihad Faqeh was killed on his way home from school after Palestinian children began throwing stones at an Israeli army four-wheel-drive. The Israeli army said two explosive devices had been thrown at the vehicle. Scores of Palestinian children have died during the Intifada. Israeli soldiers have been known to enforce curfews with live ammunition in West Bank cities. Palestinian children often throw stones at Israeli jeeps and tanks. Soldiers have responded with live fire.

The boy was killed apparently when hundreds of Palestinian children were on their way home from school. Nablus has been under 24-hour curfew since June, but for several weeks Palestinians have been defying the curfew and sending their children to school.

Last night, several dozen Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles backed by helicopter gunships swept into the central Gaza Strip. The Israelis turned their attention to the densely populated coastal strip, invading the town of Deir al-Balah and its refugee camp.

Meanwhile Amram Mitzna, the new leader of the Israeli Labour Party ­ who has said he would resume peace talks with Yasser Arafat if elected Prime Minister ­ said yesterday that Ariel Sharon had been right to send the tanks back into Bethlehem and reimpose a curfew there after last week's suicide bombing in Jerusalem, in which 11 people died, including four children. He said: "We have to fight terrorism. No government can take this and not fight against it."

But Mr Mitzna reiterated an earlier promise to order a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip immediately if elected Prime Minister, and do the same in much ­ but not all ­ of the West Bank if peace talks with the Palestinians do not succeed.

If the talks failed, Mr Mitzna said Israel would decide unilaterally where to draw a new "security border", implying it would not run along the Green Line, the internationally recognised pre-1967 border.

Mr Mitzna's pledges will be largely academic unless he achieves an unexpected turnaround in his political support. At the moment the polls are predicting Labour will be trounced by Mr Sharon's Likud Party.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said yesterday it would draft a proposed international convention on fighting suicide bombing. It maintains that such attacks are not covered by existing international law.

Both the Israeli armed forces and Palestinian militants have committed violations of existing international conventions, including the Geneva Conventions, many of which have been documented by international human rights groups. Any Israeli-drafted convention is likely to attract opposition in the United Nations from Arab governments.