GAZA CITY/RAMALLAH, 2 December 2007 — A sixth Palestinian was killed and three were wounded by Israeli troops yesterday, just hours after five fighters from Hamas’ military wing died in an overnight airstrike in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics said. An Israeli unit operating east of Gaza City killed the Palestinian whose identity was not immediately known, the medics said.
Those killed in the earlier attack all belonged to the Ezzeddine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist movement, a statement from the group said. Four were killed in the attack near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and a fifth died later of his wounds, the medics said.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed to reporters that warplanes had launched an overnight raid in the Khan Younis area, targeting what he called “a group of terrorists.”
Another two fighters were wounded in the strike, said the Brigades statement, which called the attack “the direct result of Annapolis... we will respond very toughly to this aggression.”
The statement was referring to Tuesday’s meeting in the United States when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas declared their intention to reach an agreement on creating a Palestinian state by the end of 2008.
Meanwhile, the Israeli attorney Talia Sasson, author of a highly influential government report on illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, has recently warned the Israeli government against approving a new proposal by the Justice Ministry that would allow Jewish state funding for outposts, a report said on Friday.
The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Sasson saying in a letter to the Israeli Ministerial Committee on Unauthorized Outposts, a panel that was formed to implement her report on the subject, that the proposal would constitute “a clear and immediate violation of the prime minister’s prior commitments to the president of the United States.”
The Sasson Report published on March 8, 2005, concluded that Israeli state bodies had been discreetly diverting millions of dollars to build West Bank settlements and outposts that were illegal under Israeli law. The report was commissioned by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The Israeli ministry’s proposal, which will come up for discussion in 10 days, advocates cementing Jewish ownership of land that is owned by Palestinians, Sasson said.
