GAZA CITY, 16 May 2003 — The Israeli Army yesterday killed five Palestinians during the second deadly Gaza Strip raid in as many days, as its troops also continued their sweep of the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said. Mohammad Al-Zaanin, 12, and Nidal Akrim, 22, and another unidentified man were shot dead in the town of Beit Hanoun, while Khalil Qarmut, 31, was killed in the neighboring Jabalya refugee camp, the sources said. Sixteen other Palestinians were wounded in the dawn operation mounted by some 50 Israeli tanks, accompanied by four bulldozers and two combat helicopters, during the Israeli operation.
Three of the wounded were in serious condition and another Palestinian, a gunman, was critically injured, Palestinian medical sources said. Israeli troops took control of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun early yesterday. The Israeli military said the army had launched “a broad operation of searches and arrests of wanted Palestinian militants not only in Beit Hanoun but also in Beit Lahia and in the Jabalya camp.”
The army said in a statement that infantry units backed by choppers “launched an offensive against Beit Hanoun overnight and occupied positions from which Qassam rockets were fired on Israeli territory.”
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic group Hamas, said in a statement received by AFP here that its militants had fired homemade rockets on Israeli positions at the Erez crossing point. The rockets named after the group have a range of up to 12 kilometers but are very inaccurate and have so far caused only a few slight injuries despite hitting the southern Israeli town of Sderot several times.
The Israeli Army also continued its operations in the West Bank, which it has reoccupied since June 2002, arresting 10 suspected militants. In a village near the northern town of Tulkarm, Israeli troops also dynamited a house belonging to a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades captured three months ago for planning attacks against Jewish settlers.
A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was also shot and wounded yesterday by Israeli troops guarding an army position near the northern town of Qalqilya, Palestinian security sources said.
The Israeli rights group B’Tselem, meanwhile, issued a statement denouncing the alleged use of Palestinian civilians as human shields during a military raid against wanted Palestinian militants in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday.
The latest violence, a day after five Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, comes as the Palestinians marked the anniversary of the Naqba, or “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation.
Demonstrations were held across the Palestinian territories to mark the loss of their homes by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians when the state of Israel was founded 55 years ago.
Those who stayed in their villages when Israel was created are now described as Israeli Arabs, but most of them became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and neighboring Arab countries, and still hold on to their land deeds two generations later.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas was due to address Parliament in Ramallah, but the special session was scrapped because the army prevented several members from reaching the West Bank city. But Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat his annual Naqba speech on television, charging that a “conspiracy” was sabotaging Palestinian peace efforts.
