GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH, 29 February 2008 — The Israeli warplanes continued Wednesday night and early yesterday to target different sites in the Gaza Strip killing nine civilians including three children and a 5-month-old infant. Several other people were also wounded during the attacks, witnesses and medical sources said.
Palestinian media and medics reported late in the evening that three children from one family were killed and a fourth was critically wounded when the Israeli warplanes targeted them while they were playing in eastern Jablaiy refugee camp in the northern of the Gaza Strip.
Israel launched three more airstrikes in Gaza and an arrest raid yesterday morning in the West Bank, killing nine Palestinians and raising to 22 the death toll in just over 24 hours of military offensive.
In the latest airstrike on Beit Hanoun refugee camp in the northern of the Gaza Strip yesterday afternoon a member of Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas movement, was killed and three others were wounded in the attack. Al-Qassam Brigades said that its group was preparing to fire homemade rockets into Israel when they were targeted.
Early yesterday morning, two members of Al-Qassam Brigades were killed and several others were wounded when the Israeli warplanes fired missiles at them while they were passing near a military post belonging to Hamas in eastern Gaza City.
The son of Khalil Al-Haiya, a Hamas lawmaker, was killed in the attack. Al-Haiya is one of Hamas’ top figures in Gaza, and has himself escaped assassination attempts, including an Israeli strike that killed his brother last year.
Also yesterday, three militants, two of them members of Al-Naser Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, and the third a member of Al-Qassam Brigades were killed when the Israeli warplanes targeted them in Al-Zitoun village eastern Gaza.
An infant was killed in an airstrike on Hamas government building in Gaza city last night when the Israeli warplanes targeted it with three missiles. Shortly after another building belonging to the Hamas Interior Ministry was also hit by three missiles where seven people were wounded. After nightfall, an Israeli strike killed two children as they left a mosque, local sources said. Israeli military sources said that it carried out the airstrike but had no knowledge of civilians being hit.
Israeli warplanes also hit two workshops, one in Gaza city and the other in Khan Younis city. Four civilian were wounded in the two airstrikes but the two workshops were completely destroyed.
The latest wave of violence began on Wednesday when an Israeli airstrike killed five Hamas militants traveling in a van. Hamas movement retaliated by firing more than 40 rockets into Israel, one of the heaviest barrages in months. One of the rockets landed on an Israeli college campus in Sderot city, killing one Israeli. It was the first fatal rocket attack since last May.
Al-Qassam Brigades announced yesterday that its fighters fired 70 homemade rockets against Israeli sites since yesterday. The deposed Hamas government said that the goal of the Israeli operations was to strike the resistance and to destroy the Hamas administration.
The spokesman of the government, Taher A-Nunu, said that,” the aim of this wild military campaign is double; striking the program of resistance and firmness and the second aim is to strike the government which protects and support these factions.”
Senior Israeli officials yesterday called for targeting the leadership of Hamas to stop the rocket attacks. Israeli Interior Minister Meir Shitreet said that his government “should wipe out Hamas leadership.” “We must not let anyone involved in the shooting stay alive,” Shitreet, who is also a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said. “I am opposed to hesitation and in favor of wiping out anyone who is in Hamas; from the military and political echelons, no matter who.”
Former Israeli Army Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak said that the army should have targeted Hamas leaders long ago in retaliation for the rocket attacks on southern Israel.
He told the Army Radio that “I think what they have avoided doing in recent months, hitting Hamas headquarters and Hamas leaders, it seems they are beginning to do now. I believe it would have been the correct course of action long ago.”
Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai demanded that the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee be convened to address the Qassam threat. “The situation had been raised to a new level that we cannot ignore. We must convene for a deep and integrated discussion and present different alternatives (for a response),” said Yishai.
Transportation Minister and former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz slammed the government’s response to the Qassam attacks. “We cannot continue to hesitate while we define different goals and we must not let terror continue to dictate the agenda,” said Mofaz, Army Radio reported.
