GAZA CITY, 11 May 2003 — Israeli forces entered a Palestinian town in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday morning and blew up the home of a member of the armed wing of the Hamas resistance group, sources on both sides said.
The troops, covered by helicopter gunships, moved into Beit Hanun and destroyed the home of Mahmud Zuwadi, a member of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, in an operation that damaged five other houses.
They then withdrew from the town, Palestinian security sources said. An Israeli Army spokesman said the operation was in response to the allegedly firing Thursday of five homemade Qassam rockets from Beit Hanun at the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, an attack in which an Israeli girl was wounded.
A senior Palestinian official, meanwhile, welcomed the speech by US President George W. Bush in which he promised to “work without tiring” to achieve a Palestinian state, but called on the US leader to pressure Israel over the Middle East peace road map.
Palestinian aide Nabil Abu Rudeina commended Bush’s speech and called on him to put words into action by pushing Israel to adopt the internationally-backed road map released at the end of April.
“We in the Palestinian Authority welcome President Bush’s speech but we hope that the United States will put pressure on Israel to immediately implement the road map without any delays and without putting any conditions on it,” Abu Rudeina told AFP.
“We are asking the United States to push Israel to withdraw from all of the Palestinian territories and to be serious about the Palestinian issue,” he added.
