GAZA CITY, 14 June 2006 — Israel killed 11 Palestinians, nine of them civilians, in airstrikes in the Gaza Strip yesterday.
Witnesses said that an Israeli aircraft targeted a van carrying activists of the Islamic Jihad movement with a missile in northern Gaza City. As onlookers and paramedics went to the rescue of the people inside the van, plane fired another missile resulting in the big number of casualties. At least 30 people were injured, some of them severely.
Dr. Moayaa Hasnen, head of the emergency department at Al-Shifa Hospital, told Arab News that four rescue workers, a father and his son were among the dead.
“We have been showing restraint due to the international storm caused by the incident on the Gaza beach — but no longer,” Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz was quoted by the YNet news website as telling reporters in northern Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the missile attack “state terrorism.”
The army said the missiles were fired at a vehicle carrying a group of Palestinians on their way to launch rocket attacks on Israel. “The car that we hit was loaded with Katyusha rockets and launchers and they were on their way to launch those Katyusha rockets at Israel,” an army spokeswoman said in Tel Aviv.
Islamic Jihad said two of its fighters were killed in the airstrike. “Today we say farewell to our martyrs and tomorrow Israel will say farewell to their dead,” the movement said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for an international commission to investigate Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip which have killed 26 people since Thursday night. Palestinians have fired more than 100 rockets into Israel since Israeli gunboats shelled a Gaza beach on Friday, killing picnicking Palestinians.
A senior Israeli military official said the explosion was likely caused by a land mine planted by a Palestinian group and not the result of Israeli fire.
He said the findings, based on evidence from radar tracking, videos and fragments taken from the bodies of victims, would be in a report due for release today.
“On Friday night, I had the feeling it was Israeli activity. On Saturday, I thought it was 50:50, now I am convinced it was not,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because the investigation has still not concluded. The official also said the army was unsure where one of six artillery shells it fired on Friday had landed. But other military sources have said that Israeli forces stopped shelling about 10 minutes before the explosion on the beach.
The Gaza blast occurred on a day of heavy Israeli shelling nearby. Television footage shot immediately after the explosion and broadcast around the world showed an 8-year-old Palestinian girl running panicked and distraught as she realized her father and several other relatives had been killed. The images fueled condemnation of Israel’s shelling of Gaza.
In the wake of the killings, the ruling Hamas militant group scrapped a 16-month truce with Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed his condolences over the deaths, saying he regretted the loss of life, but did not admit any responsibility.
— Additional input from agencies
