Israeli baby shot dead in Hebron

The Israeli army has imposed severe restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron after a Jewish settler baby was shot dead.

A military spokeswoman said the baby girl was shot twice in the head by a Palestinian sniper.

Her father was seriously wounded.

The army has ordered a blockade of the town and told Palestinians living in the Hebron district, from which it said the sniper fired, to leave their homes.

After the shootings in which the baby was killed, fierce exchanges of fire broke out, and the army shelled parts of Hebron with tanks and heavy artillery. A few hundred Jewish settlers live in Hebron in a heavily guarded enclave surrounded by more than one-hundred-thousand Palestinians.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, clashes were reported in Jericho, while in the Gaza Strip a fifteen-year-old Palestinian youth was said to have been seriously wounded by gunfire. More than four-hundred people have been killed since the current wave of violence began six months ago.

The vast majority of them were Palestinians, including several children.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service