Israeli Troops Kill 6 in West Bank Raids

Screams this AP headline. Six what? You have to read the article to find that out.

NABLUS, West Bank - Israeli troops raided a village in the West Bank on Sunday, killing five Palestinians, including a militant Israel blamed for several suicide bombings that have killed dozens of Israelis, officials said.

And

Among the dead was Elias Ashkar, Islamic Jihad and the army said. The Israeli army said he was behind several suicide bombings in which about 50 Israelis were killed, but Islamic Jihad said he was not among its leaders.

And

Earlier, in the nearby town of Jenin, Israeli soldiers surrounded a building next to Palestinian intelligence headquarters. Gunshots were heard, and the bloodstained body of Ali Jabarin, a former member of the violent Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, was seen lying in the street immediately afterward.

Buried at the end of the article is this:

In the Qabatiyeh raid, an AP Television News photographer was hit in the back by an Israeli rubber bullet. The injury did not appear to be serious and the circumstances of the shooting were not immediately known.

Well, it certainly wouldn't be a Palestinian rubber bullet, would it? This shows the Israelis used restriant and only targeted terrorists with real bullets.

UPDATE

Here are some details the AP left out.

In Sunday's operation, IDF troops and elite border policemen surrounded a home in the village of Kabatiya, near Jenin, after receiving intelligence that top Islamic Jihad terrorist Elias Ashkar was holed up inside. After the troops encircled the home, they were fired upon. They returned fire, killing Ashkar and four others.

More on Ashkar.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Sunday that Ashkar - dubbed Israel's No. 1 terror suspect - assembled the explosives belt used in the Tel Aviv suicide bombing last month that killed 11 people, two of whom died of their wounds this past weekend. Ashkar was held responsible by Israel for planning all of the Islamic Jihad suicide bombings in the past year including the Stage nightclub bombing in Tel Aviv which killed four, two suicide bombings in Netanya which killed eight, and a suicide bombing in Hadera in October in which five Israelis were killed. In total, he was held accountable for the murder of close to 40 people.

[...]

Ashkar, intelligence sources said, was in the midst of planning a suicide attack set to be launched in the coming weeks. He was also behind several recent thwarted terror attempts including the dramatic capture last month of a suicide bomber on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. Security officials predicted that the number of terror alerts would drop as a result of his death.

Ashkar, the Shin Bet said, received funding directly from Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus.

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