GAZA CITY, 2 August 2006 — Two Palestinians, a 16-year-old boy and a woman, were killed and six others wounded by a wayward Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, hospital officials said. An Israeli aircraft fired the missile at a car transporting fighters but missed the vehicle, medics and witnesses reported.
Ahmed Abu Qaida and Mervat Abu Sharekh, a 24-year-old woman, were killed by the missile in the Al-Nada area of the town of Beit Lahiya, they said. Also yesterday, a 15-year-old Palestinian girl, Sumaya Okal, died from injuries that she received from an Israeli tank shell in Jabaliya in northern Gaza on July 27.
At least 152 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have died since Israel launched a massive offensive in late June to recover a soldier captured by Gaza fighters and to halt rocket fire.
Witnesses said the airstrike came shortly after Palestinians fired Gaza-made rockets from the area into southern Israel. An army spokeswoman said Israel had identified a group which had fired rockets, and had attacked it.
Several Palestinian armed groups claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, saying it was a response to an Israeli bombardment of the Lebanese village of Qana Sunday in which 62 people were killed.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia associated with the Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas, said it had fired three rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, which lies adjacent to the Gaza Strip.
Islamic Jihad also claimed responsibility for shelling an Israeli Army post in eastern Gaza Strip with a number of missiles and the military wing of the ruling Hamas movement said it had also fired three rockets at three targets.
Israel artillery opened fire onto the northern Gaza Strip, with tank and artillery shells fired from pre-dawn until morning, witnesses said. Israel routinely fires artillery at what the army says are missile launching areas in the north of the Gaza Strip. Troops were also sent into Gaza as part of a concerted effort to stop the daily rocket fire on Israeli towns and cities. The land operations in the northern strip began shortly after Israel sent large forces into the south of the salient following the capture of an Israeli soldier in a raid on an army base in southern Israel.
Israel has demanded that Cpl. Gilad Shalit be released unconditionally, but a Palestinian daily reported yesterday that negotiations over a prisoner exchange have reached an advanced stage.
Quoting senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath, the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds daily said the demands also included a mutual cease-fire to halt the Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip.
However, Mushi Al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, denied the report, saying that “there has been no progress made on the case of soldier.” Also yesterday, a Palestinian official said the Rafah crossing point on the Gaza-Egypt border would be reopened for two days starting today.
— With input from agencies
