GAZA CITY, 28 December 2005 — Israeli air raids struck buildings and roads in the Gaza Strip yesterday with the army poised to implement a security zone in the Palestinian territory intended to thwart militant rocket attacks. Army helicopters fired missiles, heavily damaging offices connected to the ruling Fatah movement and roads in the northern part of the territory.
The air assault came just hours after Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the army to begin assembling a security zone in northern Gaza that Palestinians will be barred from entering. Helicopter rockets slammed into the offices of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ party at the northern town of Beit Lahiya, causing serious damage but no injuries, Gaza security sources said.
The army said the buildings in Beit Lahiya were used by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah. Helicopters also hit roads and a bridge used to access sites from where rockets are fired, the army added. “The objective of targeting these routes is to prevent the passage of terrorists to the rocket launching grounds, and to disrupt the repeated attempts to fire projectile rockets at Israeli targets,” it said.
Al-Aqsa claimed to have fired rockets into Israel on Monday, one of which landed near a nursery school but none of which caused any damage or injuries. The Palestinian Authority criticized the raids, with spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina saying the attacks compromised a de facto truce that the principal militant factions have largely observed since the start of the year.
“The continued aggression and Israeli raids risk sabotaging efforts made by the Palestinian Authority to consolidate the truce,” he said. Abu Rudeina urged Washington to “act quickly to end the Israeli escalation and overturn the Israeli decision to establish a buffer zone in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, Jewish settlers set up 13 makeshift outposts in the West Bank yesterday in a show of strength as debate over the occupied territory, home to 2.4 million Palestinians, gathers pace in Israel ahead of March 28 elections.
Sharon has vowed to keep major West Bank settlements, but has said some isolated communities may one day be dismantled. Israel is required to remove all unauthorized outposts under a US-led plan for peace with the Palestinians.
Datya Yitzhaki, a former Gaza settler and spokeswoman for the ultranationalist group “Land of Israel Faithful,” said hundreds of youths had begun building wooden and stone houses and pitched tents close to a dozen established settlements.
