Hani died in Rafah after being shot in the head by the Israeli army (AFP)

Additional Reporting By Mustafa el-Sawwaf, IOL Correspondent

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, November 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – While four Palestinians, including a 9-year-old boy, were killed by Israeli gunfire overnight, the Israeli government announced Thursday, November 27, plans to legalize several settlements in the West Bank.

Three Palestinians were shot dead when Israeli occupation forces opened fire on a civilian vehicle in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, November 26, Palestinian security sources told IslamOnline.net.

The Israeli army admitted that the slain Palestinians were unarmed, backtracking on an earlier statement claiming they were gunmen planning attacks against Israeli targets in the area, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Relatives of the Palestinian martyrs were quoted by the Israeli daily Haaretz as saying that the three cousins were shot as they drove to celebrations for Eid Al-Fitr holiday in the central Gaza Strip.

Earlier Wednesday, Palestinian sources reported that nine-year-old Palestinian boy Hani Raba'iyah was gunned down by Israeli forces in a fresh incursion into the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.

The boy was killed when Israeli troops opened fire at targets adjacent to the camp, located on the Egyptian border.

In the meantime, a Palestinian boy was killed of wounds inflicted by Israeli soldiers in southern Al-Khalil in the West Bank, Al-Jazeera reported.

The latest deaths raised to 3,626 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada against Israeli occupation, including 2,704 Palestinians and 854 Israelis, according to an AFP count.

Settlements ‘Legalized’

In another development, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told the Israeli army radio Thursday that the process of authorizing several Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank was almost complete, despite earlier assurances given by his government to the U.S.

"Illegal settlement outposts were created over the past three years and the procedure engaged for their legalization are about to be completed," AFP quoted Boim as telling the broadcast.

"I am saying that some of them are towns, that the process of legalizing them is near the end, and this is the difference," he argued.

Boim did not specify the number of outposts in the process of being "legalized" but said they could not be dismantled because "they were built on state land and not on private land".

The move is another nip in the bud of the internationally-sponsored roadmap, as it is a clear violation of its calls to freeze settlement activity and dismantle all Jewish outposts established since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to power in March 2001.

Upon officially adhering to the U.S.-backed roadmap at a summit in Jordan last June, Sharon pledged in principle to dismantle all settlements built since he became prime minister.

However, human rights groups say very few of the outposts have been dismantled, and those that have were quickly re-established.

Sharon granted on October 27, "permanent settlement" status to a number of illegal outposts in the West Bank, a move denounced as "blatant" by an Israeli peace activist, a few days after his government announced a tender to expand settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

A spokesman for the Israeli Peace Now Movement said Boim's statements prove that Sharon government is collaborating with the Jewish settlers, and has no intention of removing settlements.

The anti-settlement group registered 103 settlement outposts in the West Bank, including 56 which sprung up since March 2001.

All Israeli settlements constructed in the occupied Palestinian territories, whether authorized by Israel or not, are deemed illegal by international law and U.N. resolutions.

Annoying U.S.

Israel’s move to authorize the settlement outposts is likely to further anger its U.S. ally, which has repeatedly voiced annoyance at Sharon's settlement policy, Haaretz expected.

But many Arab observers feel Washington does not act firmly enough to force Israel stop such provocations.

Washington Wednesday deducted almost 300 million dollars from nine billion dollars worth of loan guarantees, equivalent to the sums being spent on settlement building and those parts of the separation wall Israel is constructing in the West Bank.