GAZA CITY, 9 August 2006 — An Israeli tank shell hit a house in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip early yesterday, injuring a three-month-old Palestinian baby and a 25-year-old man, hospital officials said.
An Israeli Army spokesman said artillery had shelled northern Gaza Strip targeting rocket launchers of Palestinian groups.
Three makeshift rockets had been fired from Gaza onto Israeli territory early yesterday, without causing injuries, the spokesman said. The armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for firing the rockets.
The Israeli military launched a massive offensive into Gaza on June 28, three days after Palestinian fighters from the strip killed two soldiers and captured a third in a cross-border raid.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities yesterday stopped a Norwegian delegation from entering Gaza on security grounds, Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen said.
“We were simply told the situation (in Gaza) was too dangerous,” Johansen, who was leading the delegation, said by telephone. He ruled out that the move could have been deliberate on the part of Israel to prevent the visit to an industrial area and a power station in Gaza.
“I have no reason to believe that,” he said.
The eight-member delegation returned to Jerusalem, and will try to enter the region again tomorrow, Johansen said.
Norway, broker of the now-defunct 1993 Oslo peace accords, is continuing with diplomatic efforts to reach a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In another development, the Inter-Parliamentary Union yesterday urged Israel to release Palestinian lawmakers seized since the outbreak of fighting in Gaza in June.
The organization, which groups 146 national Parliaments, issued a statement saying it was “alarmed at the arrest and detention of Mr. Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.” Dweik, a prominent member of Hamas, was arrested last weekend.
“The IPU calls upon the Israeli authorities to show restraint and respect for the parliamentary mandate and the institution of Parliament, the presidency of which was entrusted to Mr. Dweik following the elections held earlier this year,” the statement said.
“It therefore calls on the Israeli authorities to release him forthwith along with the other members of the Palestinian Legislative Council who were arrested in June,” the group added.
As part of its six-week offensive against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has rounded up several senior members of the Hamas government, which came to power in March.
The Israeli Army said yesterday that Dweik was transferred from the Ofer military prison camp near the West Bank town of Ramallah to a Jerusalem hospital after complaining of chest pains.
The prison doctor examined him and decided to transfer Dweik to the Sharei Tzadek Hospital in Jerusalem, an army spokesman told reporters. “He went to tests at the hospital and will remain under observation,” the prison doctor said.
Other Israeli sources revealed that Dweik was transferred to the hospital after he was beaten by the Israeli interrogators.
Palestinian Minister of Health Dr. Basem Naeem held the Israeli government accountable for any deterioration in the health of the PLC speaker. Naeem condemned the inhuman treatment against Dweik stressing that he was subjected to torture and sustained bruises in the chest and the face.
— With input from agencies
