GAZA City, 27 August 2004 — A senior Islamic Jihad leader and six other people were wounded in an Israeli assassination attempt in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah last night.
“Mohammed Sheikh Al-Khalil was hit by shrapnel when an Israeli helicopter fired a rocket at his house in the Rafah refugee camp,” said a Jihad official.
Earlier Israeli forces closed Gaza Strip’s main roads at several points and shut its border with Egypt hours after Palestinians fired a fresh round of crude rockets at an Israeli town, causing alarm but no injuries.
The Israeli Army also demolished 13 Palestinian houses during an incursion in the southern town of Rafah. The houses were home to 118 people who were all evacuated before the army bulldozers razed the buildings, flanked by tanks and with an assault helicopter flying overhead.
Armed clashes broke out at one stage between the troops and Palestinian fighters but there were no reports of any injuries.
An Israeli military source said that the army had destroyed “two structures which served as cover for attacks against Israeli targets.” An anti-tank rocket had been fired at the soldiers, who also came under attack from gunmen, the source added.
Thousands of Rafah residents have been left homeless in recent months by Israeli offensives which the army says are designed to uncover tunnels used to smuggle in weapons from under the border with Egypt.
— Additional input from agencies
