GAZA, DEC 20: Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in separate incidents in Gaza on Wednesday, one of them a 14-year-old boy caught in a fierce five-hour gun battle near the Egyptian border, hospital officials said.Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said Hani Youssef al-Sufi, 14, was killed during a heavy exchange of fire involving Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in Gaza's Rafah district near the Egyptian frontier.They said 25-year-old Awad Zaloum was also killed and at least 40 other Palestinians were injured in the confrontation.In the second incident, civil emergency worker Rifaat Faisal Abu Marzouk, 28, was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers guarding the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, the officials said.The Israeli army said it has checked half a dozen times and know of no such incident.The deaths brought the toll to at least 333 people, most of them Palestinians, killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting that erupted in late September.Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops in Rafah battling Palestinian gunmen had fired assault rifles and what appeared to be anti-tank rockets from several armoured personnel carriers and two watchtowers overlooking Palestinian residential areas.
