GAZA CITY, 21 August 2007 — Six Hamas fighters were killed in the Gaza Strip yesterday when an Israeli missile hit their jeep in one of the deadliest single strikes since Hamas took control of the territory two months ago.
Another Hamas gunman was wounded as a result of the strike on a jeep carrying the fighters in the central Bureij refugee camp near the border with Israel, medics, witnesses and Hamas said.
“Occupation forces fired a ground-to-ground missile at the car that was carrying members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades,” a Hamas spokesman said, referring to the movement’s armed wing.
An Israeli Army spokeswoman said that ground fire hit “a vehicle carrying a terror cell that launched a Qassam (rocket) attack into Israel today. We identified hitting it.” Earlier yesterday, two rockets and two mortar rounds were fired into Israel from Gaza, without causing casualties or damage.
Hamas vowed to avenge the strike. “This crime will not go unpunished,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. “This massacre shows the dangerous Israeli escalation against the Palestinian people and the resistance.”
The latest deaths took to 5,826 the number of people killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence since 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinian.
The Israeli strike came as electricity supply in the Strip became the latest battleground in the power struggle between Hamas and their Fatah rivals, who have accused Hamas of pocketing electricity revenues. The losers are hundreds of thousands of Gazans, who have been plunged into darkness as European donors cut off key electricity aid.
On Sunday, the European Union stopped paying for fuel to power generators that produce electricity for at least half of Gaza’s population of 1.4 million. Yesterday, it said the payments would not resume because it had received word that Hamas was “diverting” electricity revenues.
“We are ready to resume our support to the Gaza power plant within hours once we receive the appropriate assurances that all the funds will be exclusively used for the benefit of the Gaza population,” the European Commission — the EU’s executive branch — said in a statement. Hamas has controlled Gaza since it vanquished Fatah gunmen in fierce fighting in June. The Fatah-led government that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas set up in the West Bank has accused Hamas of siphoning off electricity revenues.
“Hamas is collecting all the electricity fees and never pays the costs of the electricity,” said Jawwad Hirzallah, deputy minister of economy. “The Europeans were paying $10 million that Hamas collects from the people and doesn’t pay the costs. So the European Union found itself paying the electricity company, while Hamas was pocketing the revenues.”
But Hamas, which last month arrested the electric company’s Fatah-affiliated executive director on corruption charges, has denied putting its hands on the utility’s money. And it accused the government in Ramallah of trying to discredit it through the electricity crisis.
“The government in Gaza is not involved in the operations of the (electric) company,” said Hamas adviser Ala Araj. “In the next few days, the government will announce the investigations of the former director of the company, who stole money the EU donated.”
