Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian in W Bank-clinic

NABLUS, West Bank, Dec 1 (Reuters) Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian youth in the West Bank local police and a clinic said, hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a Gaza ceasefire to be broadened.

An Israeli military spokesman in Tel Aviv said yesterday that a Palestinian threw three petrol bombs and a pipe bomb at Israeli troops, who shot him in the lower part of his body.

Palestinian police and a local medical clinic said the Israeli gunfire killed Shahdi Nayef, 16, in the village of Beita, near the West Bank city of Nablus.

A ceasefire went into effect on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, a truce aimed at halting rocket attacks on southern Israel by Palestinian militants and an Israeli military offensive.

Since the truce began, militants have carried out several rocket attacks but Israel has held its fire, saying it would show restraint to give the ceasefire a chance to take hold.

''We would hope for a more comprehensive ceasefire,'' Rice said during a visit to the occupied West Bank and Israel, where she held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Both Olmert and Abbas support widening the ceasefire to the West Bank.

On Monday, Israeli troops killed a militant commander and a 50-year-old woman during an exchange of fire in the West Bank.

REUTERS SBA BST0540