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Five killed in new Israeli strikes on Gaza
AFP, January 3,
2008
by Adel
Zaanoun
GAZA CITY, Jan
3, 2008 (AFP) - Five Palestinians, including two women, were
killed in Israeli ground and air raids in Gaza on Thursday,
local medical sources said, in the latest Israeli action
against the Hamas-ruled territory.
Israeli troops
and tanks backed by combat helicopters were operating in the
village of Bani Suheila near the southern town of Khan
Yunis, witnesses and medical sources said.
Three
Palestinian gunmen and two women were killed by Israeli fire
and another 30 people were injured in the attacks, the
sources said.
Israel has
carried out near-daily military strikes and incursions
across what it considers a "hostile entity" since the
Islamist movement Hamas seized power in June after routing
security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Israeli troops
in about 70 army jeeps also rolled into the West Bank town
of Nablus in search of wanted militants on Thursday.
In Gaza,
brothers Ahmad Fayyad, 20, and 25-year-old Sami Fayyad, both
members of the radical Islamic Jihad, were killed in a raid
on a house which also killed their mother, Karima, 50, and
sister Asmaa, 20, the medical sources said.
Nine other
people were injured.
One member of
the armed wing of Hamas was also killed during gunbattles
with Israeli troops.
"Infantry units
backed by the air force are continuing to operate in the
Khan Yunis area," an army spokeswoman said, adding that
there were "losses" among Palestinians.
She said ground
forces were engaged in heavy exchanges of fire with
Palestinian fighters who were hiding in houses, saying
civilian casualties were caused because "they were letting
militants into their homes."
Aircraft also
destroyed two houses where militants were suspected to be
hiding. A third house was blown up by ground troops,
witnesses added.
On Wednesday,
Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians, including six
militants, in pre-dawn strikes in Gaza, an impoverished
territory of about 1.4 million people.
Israel has long
been struggling to put an end to Palestinian rocket fire
against the south of the country from Gaza.
In September,
the government declared the territory a "hostile entity",
paving the way for economic sanctions and cutbacks in fuel
and electricity supplies to Gaza, raising fears of an
impending humanitarian crisis.
On Thursday, an
Israeli military source said that a rocket fired from Gaza
landed on the outskirts of the southern Israeli port city of
Ashkelon, without causing casualties.
Meanwhile,
about 70 Israeli army jeeps rolled into the West Bank town
of Nablus to arrest wanted militants and were surrounding
buildings including the Rafidya hospital in the city centre,
a Palestinian official said.
An Israeli army
spokesman confirmed an operation was underway in Nablus,
saying troops had identified hitting a Palestinian gunmen
who had opened fire towards Israeli forces.
The Palestinian
government led by prime minister Salam Fayyad has in recent
months deployed hundreds of police officers as part of an
ambitious security plan in its West Bank power base.
Although it
supports the security plan, Israel has nevertheless reserved
the right to operate inside Palestinian towns and villages
to counter militant activity. |
