GAZA CITY, 22 June 2006 — An Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a car traveling in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday evening, but missed and hit a house instead, killing a man, his sister who was seven months pregnant and her unborn baby, hospital officials said.
At least 13 other people were injured, four of them children. Two of them are in a serious condition, officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis said.
Medical sources identified the two killed as Fatmah Ahmad, 37, and her brother Zakrya Ahmed, 45. The woman died immediately while her brother later died of wounds in hospital. Doctors said they tried to save the woman’s seven-month- old fetus, but failed.
Television footage showed bloodstains on the dust-filled floor, next to empty chairs and a coffee table, as Palestinians inspected the damage.
Just hours earlier grieving and angry Palestinians had buried three children killed in a previous attack.
An Israeli Army spokeswoman expressed regret at the death of the woman. The Israeli Air Force had fired the missile as the car traveled in a relatively unpopulated area on the outskirts of Khan Younis, to avoid civilian deaths as had happened in previous attacks. “What happened in this case, the missile simply missed,” said the army spokeswoman. The Israeli Army would investigate why, she pledged.
The target had been a group of fighters from the Popular Resistance Committees who had been on their way to carry out an attack against Israel, she said, adding she could give no further details.
Witnesses said the missile was fired by an Israeli drone south of Khan Younis, but hit the house while the family living in it was inside. The woman’s husband was among the injured.
The airstrike was the ninth in just over two weeks, and the third in which civilians were killed. Some 30 Palestinians were killed in the preceding attacks, the latest of which occurred Tuesday night and also missed its target. A five-year-old boy, a six-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy were killed in that attack north of Gaza City Tuesday, after three fighters of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades managed to jump out of their car before it was struck by a missile. And on Tuesday last week, nine civilians, in addition to two fighters, were killed when two missiles struck a car traveling in a northern Gaza City suburb and transporting a locally-produced Katyusha-like rocket.
The latest attack came amid Israeli newspaper reports that Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz had given the green light to plans to widen Israel’s military attacks in Gaza, aimed at reducing the now daily rocket fire from the strip at Israel.
Anticipating an intensification of Israel’s attacks, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat yesterday added his voice to calls by President Mahmoud Abbas on fighters in Gaza to stop launching rockets into Israel.
Members of Hamas’ armed wing have resumed their participation in the rocket fire after an alleged Israeli artillery shell killed eight Palestinian civilians on a northern Gaza beach twelve days ago.
Under the header “in the cross-hairs,” the Yediot Aharonot daily also printed pictures of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar along with those of six Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa leaders.
Peretz has been under increasing pressure to find new ways to act against the rocket fire from Gaza, with residents in his own hometown of Sderot, located just northeast of the strip and the main target of the rockets, conducting a hunger strike, and for several hours Tuesday, blocking the town’s entrances with trucks and tractors.
Earlier, a senior member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah movement, was killed and two others were wounded in an Israeli raid yesterday on the Al-Eien refugee camp near Nablus city in the West Bank, witnesses and medical sources said.
Daoud Al-Qatouni 21 was killed and two others of the same group were wounded during clashes lasting for several hours with Israeli special forces who had stormed the area. Medical sources and witnesses said that Qatouni was surrounded by Israeli soldiers who did not allow ambulances to reach him to provide treatment after he was injured.
— With input from agencies
