Home damage spurs West Bank clashes
SHWEIKEH, West Bank -- The Israeli military on Monday partially demolished the home of a Palestinian accused of killing two Israelis in an attack two months ago.
The house itself, located in a West Bank village, was left intact while part of its interior was destroyed.
Palestinian protesters arrived to watch the military effort and afterward clashed with Israeli forces.
The military said it was carrying out "operational activity."
Ashraf Naalweh was accused of killing two Israelis at a West Bank industrial zone in October. Israeli troops killed Naalweh in an arrest raid last week after a two-month manhunt.
Israeli-Palestinian violence spiked last week in the West Bank, touched off by a pair of deadly shootings blamed on Hamas militants. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the expedited demolition of militant homes.
While Israel believes the practice serves as a deterrent to potential attackers, critics say the demolitions amount to collective punishment.
Meanwhile, the army has intensified its search for the Palestinian assailants, stepping up its raids in the West Bank and arresting suspected Hamas members.
6 deaths reported in India hospital fire
NEW DELHI -- At least six people died and 129 others were injured in a fire that broke out Monday in a hospital in Mumbai, police said.
The fire in the five-story government-run ESIC Kamgar Hospital in the suburban Andheri area was believed to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, police officer A.P. Lokhand said.
The Press Trust of India news agency said most of the injured were in stable condition.
A top fire official, P.S. Rahangdale, said smoke engulfed the building. Rahangdale said rescuers were searching all of the floors to see whether any patients, hospital staff members or visitors were still trapped there.
Rahangdale said the fire was limited to the third floor, where doctors, nurses and patients were rescued.
A Times of India newspaper report said 49 patients were evacuated and transferred to nearby hospitals.
5 people killed as Kenyans resist police
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Five people were killed in a village in Western Kenya after residents resisted the arrest of a suspect in a domestic-abuse case, a police official said Monday.
A policeman has been arrested in connection with the deaths Sunday evening in Trans-Nzoia County, and an independent investigation has been launched, police spokesman Charles Owino said.
The incident is one of many in which Kenyans have taken the law into their hands because they have lost trust in the police force, human-rights activists say.
Peter Kiama, the executive director of rights group Independent Medico Legal Unit, said Kenya's police are often accused of corruption and human-rights abuses, including illegal killings and torture.
"The more police act outside the law, the more it erodes public confidence," he said. "We have been telling them this from way back."
In recent weeks, videos of Kenyans resisting police have circulated on social media. Among them is a video of a man identified as schoolteacher who appears to hit a baton-wielding policeman on the head with a stick when officers started hitting the teacher's colleagues, who were demonstrating peacefully.
Kiama said it is wrong for the public to attack policemen and that they should report any misconduct to institutions that have been set up to deal with such issues.
For more than a decade, Kenya's police force has been ranked as one of the country's most corrupt institutions by the anti-corruption organization Transparency International.
This year, the force was rated the most corrupt institution in Kenya by the government's own anti-corruption agency.
Croatia accused in migrants' expulsion
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- A Bosnian official said Monday that migrants are being illegally pushed back into the country's territory by police in neighboring Croatia.
Bosnian Security Minister Dragan Mektic said scores of migrants are reporting that they have been forced to return to Bosnia by Croatian police who threatened them and in some cases used violence against them.
Mektic said some of the migrants had visible injuries.
An international group of volunteers, Border Violence Monitoring, published a video Sunday that showed Croatian police officers shouting orders at migrants and escorting them from a forest.
Josip Celic, the Croatian police deputy director, denied the accusations Monday, saying police weren't expelling the migrants, but rather were "deterring" them from illegally entering Croatia.
Celic said the police are investigating all reports of violence against migrants by Croatian officers.
-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports
A Section on 12/18/2018