GAZA CITY, 4 August 2006 — Eight Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed yesterday in military strikes on Al-Shoka neighborhood of eastern Rafah in southern Gaza as Israel pressed its month-long offensive.
Dr. Ali Moosa, director of Abu Yousef Al-Najar Hospital in Rafah told Arab News that eight civilians were killed and 22 others were wounded, eight in serious condition. Several women were among the wounded. He added that most of the bodies arrived at the hospital burned and cut into pieces.
Anis Abu Awaad, the boy who died, was killed along with three others in an air raid, while a tank shell killed two other Palestinians early yesterday, security officials said.
Another tank shell killed a member of Islamic Jihad, while a 50-year-old man died late in the morning when Israeli soldiers fired in a Rafah neighborhood, hospital and security officials said.
Children continued to be caught by the violence. Two youngsters, Muhamed Abu Hassan, aged 4, and his six-year-old sister Rihem, were wounded late on Wednesday by Israeli tank fire during an incursion in the area of the Dahaniya airport on the outskirts of Rafah, hospital officials said.
The strikes near Rafah were part of Israel’s massive offensive launched in Gaza on June 28, three days after Palestinians killed two soldiers and seized a third in a cross-border raid. The Israeli military says the offensive is aimed at recovering the captured soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and at stopping Palestinian armed groups from firing rockets into Israel.
The operation is Israel’s first incursion into Gaza after the Jewish state left the strip last year after a 38-year occupation. The number of rockets fired by Palestinians from the strip has decreased significantly, but not halted completely.
On Wednesday, one Israeli was wounded when a rocket fired from Gaza hit Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 residents around eight kilometers (five miles) north of the border.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian human rights group accused the European Union yesterday of contributing to the “strangulation” of the Gaza Strip by keeping its monitors away from the Gaza-Egypt border crossing of Rafah. The crossing has been closed since the June 25 capture of the Israeli soldier.
According to Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), some 7,000 Palestinians are stranded on the Egyptian side of the border, including about 400 who are staying at the exit terminal on the Egyptian side.
Thousands of Gazans are also unable to travel to Egypt.
— With input from agencies
