Fighter killed in Gaza and settlers attack farmers in the West Bank, these stories and more coming up stay tuned.

The News Cast

A fighter o f the Al Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, was killed on Monday during training in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement faxed to press the brigades said that Saleem Abu Shunnar, aged 18, was killed on Monday afternoon during a training exercise near Gaza City.

In other Gaza news, the Egyptian Authorities allowed on Monday eight people from the Gaza Strip to enter Egypt through the Rafah crossing. The Palestinian embassy in Cairo said that among those eight were students and patients.

The Israeli military destroyed, on Monday, five acres of land owned by villagers from Al Towani village in the southern West Bank

The villagers reported that the military is expanding the nearby settlement of Ma'on, they added that the destruction work is happing around the clock.

According to international law all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, are illegal. The villagers say that armed settlers are attacking them and killing their sheep while the army is protecting the settlers.

Towani is a small Palestinian village located on the green line, it hosts a dozen families that depends on farming as a main source of income.

In related news a groups of Israeli settlers set fire on Monday afternoon to Palestinian owned farm lands in the northern West Bank.

Local sources reported that the lands are owned by farmers from the villages of Erak Bureen and Raubah, near Nablus.

The villagers added that the settlers came from the nearby illegal settlement of Barkha. The settlers damaged summer crops and fruit trees the farmers stated.

Conclusion

Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Ghassan Bannoura.