NABLUS: Three Palestinian police officers and one Hamas militant were killed in an exchange of gunfire on Sunday in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, Palestinian police said.The policemen were killed while they were attempting to arrest Mohammad Yassine, a member of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, who had barricaded himself in his home. Two other police officers were killed in the exchange of gunfire. A curfew was imposed on the town following the incident, said the police. Hamas, a bitter rival of the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, violently ousted Fatah from the Gaza Strip in June 2007, effectively limiting Abbas's rule to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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