GAZA CITY, 24 October 2006 — In one of the deadliest days of fighting in Israel’s four-month-old offensive in the coastal area, Israeli troops shot and killed seven Palestinians, including three brothers and two of their cousins, in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday.
Another 25 people were wounded, three of them seriously, in the firing on the first day of the three-day Eid Al-Fitr holiday, Palestinian hospital officials said. President Mahmoud Abbas described the operation as a “massacre.” “The president condemns this massacre... at a time when the Palestinian people are celebrating the feast of Eid Al-Fitr,” said a statement from Abbas’ office.
“The president demands the international community to intervene as quickly as possible to stop the Israeli massacres, particularly in the Gaza Strip.”
“It is a clear assassination operation,” Abu Mujahid, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, told AFP. “Ata Shinbari was not in the process of carrying out a military operation.”
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh had earlier appealed for Palestinian unity and continuing resistance to Israel following deadly clashes between supporters of the Islamists and Abbas’ Fatah faction.
“Stop the bloodshed, stop using weapons against your brothers, and unite,” Haniyeh told a crowd of about 20,000 gathered in Gaza City.
The Israeli Army said gunmen fired on its troops, who were in the area operating against Palestinian rocket-launchers. Ten Palestinians were hit in the ensuing gunbattle, it said.
Palestinian witnesses said the dead men opened fire after thinking a rival clan was engaging them in a gunbattle.
The Popular Resistance Committees group said Ata Shinbari was leader of the PRC’s rocket-launching unit. PRC spokesman Abu Abir vowed revenge for Shinbari’s death. “This is the calm before the storm,” he told a news conference.
Witnesses said at least six of the seven dead men were armed. The June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier by the PRC and other fighters linked to the ruling Hamas party touched off a widespread Israeli military campaign in Gaza, which has been expanded to target rocket-launching operations and weapons-smuggling tunnels. Israel has also kept Gaza border crossings largely closed since Cpl. Gilad Shalit was seized, sharply restricting the movement of people and goods in and out of the strip.
