GAZA CITY, 27 September 2007 — Two Israeli raids across the Gaza Strip killed at least nine Palestinians yesterday. Four Palestinians were killed by tank fire during an Israeli Army ground incursion on the outskirts of the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, medical sources said.
Armored vehicles supported by helicopters carried out the operation which an Israeli Army spokeswoman said was a “routine” incursion aimed at locating rockets and explosive devices. Nine other people were wounded in the ground raid which came shortly after five Palestinian fighters belonging to a radical group which claims links to Al-Qaeda were killed by an Israeli air raid in the heart of Gaza City.
The Army of Islam fighters were driving through the busy Zaitoun neighborhood when their car was hit by an Israeli missile, witnesses and security sources said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said it had “targeted a vehicle with terror activists and rockets ready for launching in it.” The Israeli Army has been struggling with little success to curb incessant Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel, and yesterday Defense Minister Ehud Barak said “we are nearing an extensive operation in Gaza in response to rocket firing.”
The Army of Islam was one of three Palestinian groups which claimed responsibility for the capture of an Israeli serviceman in a daring cross-border raid in June 2006. It was also responsible for the abduction of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in March this year.
Seven rockets fired by Gaza fighters hit Israel yesterday without causing casualties or damage, the army said. And 20 mortar rounds were also fired from the territory, it said.
Earlier yesterday, a Palestinian child thought to be around 12 years old was wounded when Israeli warplanes fired a missile at a rocket launcher in northern Gaza, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, the Hamas movement ruling Gaza called on Arab countries yesterday to stay away from a US-sponsored Middle East peace meeting expected in November. “The (Hamas) government warns that the autumn conference will be a new occasion for negotiators to make concessions,” it said in a statement. “We thus call on our Arab brothers not to venture into this obscure tunnel,” it said.
Israel’s main ally the United States has called an international Middle East peace meeting for later this autumn as part of its efforts to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June.
In another development, Palestinian security forces uncovered two Qassam rockets among other explosive materials in El-Aida refugee camp and the Beit Jala municipal building, in an area facing the Israeli settlement of Gilo in East Jerusalem, senior Palestinian security official said yesterday.
Commander of the Palestinian security in Bethlehem, Brig. Abu Yusuf Al-Haddar, said that the security services neutralized the rockets. The rockets are about one and a half meters in length and 20 millimeters in diameter. He added that his forces launched an investigation to know the identity of the rockets’ owner.
— With input from agencies
