Israeli jets blast private plane out of the sky

JERUSALEM - Israeli forces on Thursday shot down a Lebanese aircraft they feared was on a suicide mission and killed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for the first time since calling for a ceasefire earlier this week.

Israel said the light plane had violated its airspace and officials believed it could have been carrying out an airborne guerrilla attack against an Israeli city on the first anniversary of an Israeli military pullout from Lebanon.

But the Lebanese Army said the plane, flown by a private student pilot who took off from Beirut without permission, had been intercepted by Israeli warplanes over southern Lebanon and forced across the border before being shot down. Israel's air force chief denied the allegation.

The Lebanese pilot, identified as 43-year-old Stephan Ohannis Nicolian, was killed. His body plunged through the roof of a Navy training school north of Tel Aviv.

Separately, Israeli troops shot dead an 18-year-old deaf Palestinian youth in the Gaza Strip as he stood outside his house, unaware that a gun battle was raging around him as tanks tried to enter the Rafa refugee camp. Hours later, Israeli soldiers shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during an incursion into the Canada refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

They were the first Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since Tuesday when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for a ceasefire in an eight-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

Mohammad Dahlan, a senior Palestinian official, said the Israeli actions were "real evidence of the falseness of that call."

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