Israeli occupation troops on Tuesday fired a tank shell at a three-story apartment building, then razed it, killing a Palestinian resistance man who several hours earlier had attacked an Israeli occupation army patrol, the occupation army and witnesses said. One Israeli occupation soldier was killed and five wounded in the ambush late Monday in the West Bank city of Hebron.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a resistance PLO resistance group, claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The attack targeted occupation soldiers patrolling a road connecting Hebron with the nearby Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba.

After the ambush, a resistance man ran into a nearby apartment building. At daybreak, residents were asked to leave the building and occupation soldiers fired a tank shell at it, the occupation army said. Despite the shelling, there was shooting from the building as an armored bulldozer wrecked it. Later, the body of a resistance man was found in the rubble.

Occupation troops also fired rubber-coated steel pellets in the air when residents tried to approach the rubble to salvage any belongings.

Hebron has been the scene of frequent violence in recent months, especially since Nov. 16 when 12 Israeli security occupation forces were killed in an attack. Since then, the Israeli occupation army has taken over the Palestinian-controlled area of the city.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, a 40-year-old Palestinian militia leader, Jaber Jaber, was shot to death in an apparent vigilante attack. Jaber was walking in a downtown street when a resistance man killed him with four shots from a pistol.

In the past, Jaber served time in Israeli jails for killing suspected Palestinian collaborators with Israel, and the suspect in Tuesday's shooting is a relative of one of Jaber's victims, security occupation forces said. Jaber led a local militia squad linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah  movement.

In the West Bank village of Silat al-Harathia, near Jenin, occupation troops demolished the family home of Islamic Jihad activist Anas Jaradat, who remains a fugitive. Israel believes Jaradat was responsible for shooting attacks and attempted car bombings. Twenty people were made homeless by the demolition, Palestinians said.

In the Gaza Strip , the occupation army demolished a house belonging to a member of the resistance group Hamas and razed an olive grove in the village of Karara in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians said.

The occupation army, apparently referring to the same building, said occupation troops found 110 pounds of explosives and pipe bombs in it. Some trees had to be uprooted for armored vehicles to enter the area, the occupation army said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli medical personnel carry a wounded Israeli soldier to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem late Monday, March 10, 2003. An Israeli was killed and three others were wounded Monday evening by Palestinian gunfire in the center of the southern West Bank town of Hebron. The attack took place near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, in Hebron's Jewish enclave. (AP Photo/Zoom 77/Nili Bassa