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Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog, has called for an immediate investigation into the killing of Palestinian cameraman, Nazeeh Darwazeh, who was shot by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday.

The 43-year-old working for the American news agency APTN (Association Press Television Network) and a local Palestinian television was hit by a bullet, which pierced his right eye, while filming clashes between Palestinian stone throwers and IOF soldiers.

Sixteen Palestinians, mostly schoolchildren, were wounded in the clash, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

Two Palestinian cameramen at the scene 뾊assan al-Titi of Reuters ad Sami Al-Assi, who works for a Palestinian station뾱aid the IOF soldier who shot Darwazeh deliberately targeted the group of journalists covering the action on the ground.

They also said the IOF soldier carefully took aim at the group before firing a single shot. Seconds later, Darwzeh뾵ho was wearing a florescent jacket뾵as hit and fell to the ground as he was filming.

Video footage taken by Reuters showed an IOF soldier kneeling beside a tank and pointing a rifle down the alley in the Old City (Casbah) where journalists were wearing florescent green bulletproof vests that read, 밣ress.� That뭩 when Darwazeh was shot.

Al-Titi, who was standing beside Darwazeh when he was shot, said an Israeli tank had broken down in the Old City and Palestinian youths had gathered to throw stones.

He said that all of a sudden an IOF soldier got out of an armored car and knelt beside the tank.

밯e shouted at him in Hebrew that we were journalists. Nazeeh shouted and then I shouted.� But the soldier fired a single shot into the group of reporters.

밫he soldier looked. He saw me and Nazeeh,� al-Titi said. 밒 looked and saw that [Nazeeh뭩] head was damaged severely. His brain was hanging out of his skull.�

Darwazeh leaves behind a wife and five children, the youngest six months old.

밯e are appalled by his death,� said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert M�nard.

밐e is the fourth journalist killed in the Occupied Territories since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000. We demand an enquiry into who was responsible, with its results made public, and for those responsible to be punished.�

In a statement issued after the cameraman뭩 death, the PNA said Israel has 밹ommitted a war crime� by 뱋pening fire on journalists and other civilians�.

It added that this 밹rime might prevent other media from reporting on the crimes committed by the Israeli army�.

Darwazeh was the fourth journalist to be killed by IOF in the occupied territory in over a year.
Italian journalist Raffaele Ciriello, 42, was killed in mid March of last year in the centre of the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Freelance photographer Imad Abu Zahra, 35, died on 12 July after being seriously wounded in the leg in the center of Jenin when Israeli armored cars opened fire without warning and, according to witnesses, without any clash or dangerous situation to justify the shooting.

Issam Tillawi, 32, a journalist and presenter with The Voice of Palestine, was shot by IOF in September after he was hit by a shot that witnesses said came from an Israeli sniper on top of a building in Ramallah.

Only a few days ago Darwazeh, who was a familiar figure in Nablus, was on the streets of the northern West Bank city with a group of Palestinian journalists to protest the death of a reporter for al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite network, killed during the US attack on Baghdad.

On Saturday, Darwazeh뭩 body was carried through Nablus wrapped in Palestinian flag to a funeral attended by about 4,000 people.

Meanwhile Zionist regime has detained two French journalists who came to Israel en route to the occupied Palestinian territory to film the plight of foreign peace activists working there.

Arnaud Muller, 28, and cameraman Harold Bellanger, 33, who work for the French TV Canal Plus were detained upon arrival at Ben Gurion International airport near Tel Aviv on Thursday and were told they would spend the night in a detention cell before being deported back to France.

The journalists wanted to make a program about peace activists who come in solidarity with Palestinians in the occupied territory, protest the Israeli occupation in non-violent methods and help prevent the demolition of Palestinians� homes.

The program would have been shown on a current affairs show called Le Vrai Journal at the French television.

밯e wanted to do a piece investigating what happened with the peace activists but they wouldn뭪 let us in. I have come to Israel many times before and this has never happened to me,� Muller said.

In two months, at least four activists with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)뾞 pro-Palestinian peace group뾵ere shot at by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), rendering one dead, another severely injured and disfigured and another brain dead.

Last month, US peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was volunteering with the ISM, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in what eyewitnesses said was a deliberate act of murder.

The 23-year-old was trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinians� home in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

Since then, two more ISM activists were shot. Fellow American activist, Brian Avery was shot in the face in the northern West Bank town of Jenin at a time when eyewitnesses said there were no clashes.

21-year-old British volunteer Tom Hurndall was pronounced clinically dead after an IOF sniper shot him in the head in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.

Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders)뾞n international media watchdog뾩ashed out at the arrests, accusing Israel of trying to prevent freedom of press.

밫he Israeli authorities are visibly stopping the international press from inquiring into certain issues which bother the army,� Robert Menard, secretary of the organisation said in a statement faxed to AFP.

밯e demand that this television team be immediately permitted to enter the country and work freely in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.� He added.

Danny Seaman, the head of the Israeli government press office, claimed many of those who came to Israel as journalists turned out to be peace activists.

밢ver the last year, we have had dozens of people claiming to be journalists turning up in the country when in reality they turn out to be peace activists,� Seaman charged.

밄ut I don뭪 want to call them peace activists because they뭨e really terrorist sympathisers.�