GAZA CITY, 5 December 2005 — Israeli warplanes carried out a series of strikes in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday in response to Palestinian rocket attacks on an Israeli border town.
Palestinian sources said some missiles landed in an open area while others hit a building housing a charity run by the Islamic Jihad movement. One bystander was lightly wounded by shrapnel.
An Israeli Army spokesman said the missiles hit a building in Gaza City used by Palestinian fighters and the airstrike was in response to earlier rocket attacks by Palestinians from the strip into Israel.
On Saturday, Palestinians fired three Qassam homemade rockets into Israel in retaliation for the killing of two Palestinians in Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip. Israeli security sources said all the rockets landed in an open field in a town in the western Negev Desert. No injuries or damages were reported.
Islamic Jihad said in a statement later that it may not renew a truce with Israel due to the ongoing Israeli attacks on its members.
On March 17, Palestinian factions agreed on a yearlong truce with Israel.
The dominant resistance movement, Hamas also said it would not renew the truce if Israel continued to hold Palestinian prisoners and went ahead with military operations.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that veteran leader Shimon Peres would play an important role in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking if the prime minister’s new Kadima party won the country’s March election.
“I am happy and proud that Shimon Peres has decided to join us, in Kadima,” Sharon told a news conference with Peres at his side.
“I asked Shimon Peres to pick any job he wants. Shimon can fulfill any post, I believe with great success,” he said.
Peres, 82, left the Labour party, which voted him out as its leader last month, and threw his support behind Sharon on Wednesday, saying he was confident the prime minister would seek peace with the Palestinians.
“Regardless of the job Shimon picks, it is crystal clear he will be a full and central partner in the diplomatic process,” Sharon said, referring to peacemaking with the Palestinians.
Sharon said he had yet to discuss with Peres exactly what his job would be under a Kadima-led government after the March 28 election.
— Additional input from agencies
