Re: Gaza’s precious little freedom in extreme danger: Palestinian rocket hits Israel
Our worst fears are coming true. Gaza’s precsious little freedom is almost lost thanks to the Hummus Hammas.
Damn MAToos.
Israel widens offensive on Gaza, WBank militants
28 Sep 2005 00:26:07 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Israel widened an offensive against Palestinian militants on Wednesday, launching several predawn air raids that knocked out electricity in Gaza City and sweeping into two West Bank cities, witnesses said.
The escalating violence has battered hopes that Israel’s troop pullout from Gaza two weeks ago, billed as “disengagement” from conflict, would boost chances for peace.
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at four militant targets in and around Gaza City, destroying the offices of a leading Fatah militant, and two other militant groups, an Israeli military source and Palestinian witnesses said.
They said a fifth missile fired later destroyed a bridge in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun. An Israeli military source said a leading traffic artery for militants had been wrecked. The raids plunged much of Gaza City into darkness cutting electricity to many of its 350,000 residents for two hours. Rescue workers sifted through the rubble in Gaza and El Bureij refugee camp. There were no reported casualties.
Hours earlier Israeli artillery gunners had opened fire on suspected rocket launching sites in northern Gaza after darkness on Tuesday, shelling the area for the first time since Israel’s Sept. 12 exit from the zone its army had ruled for 38 years.
The shelling came after a rocket slammed into a street in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
A previous rocket barrage drew threats from Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz that militants “will be hit again and again until they understand there are new rules to the game” and that Israel would respond to any attacks.
Israeli troops also mounted fresh raids in the occupied West Bank, where it has arrested dozens of suspected militants in recent days.
SOLDIERS SWEEP INTO WEST BANK TOWNS
Soldiers swept into the towns of Tulkarm and Qalqilya where they sealed the offices of at least two Islamic charities accused of links to Hamas militants, witnesses said.
There were no reported arrests.
The West Bank raids followed Tuesday’s release of a videotape and statement by Hamas, a group bent on Israel’s destruction, claiming responsibility for slaying an Israeli man.
Hamas said initially it had kidnapped Sasson Nuriel, 50, a candy merchant from Jerusalem, to use him as a bargaining chip to free prisoners from Israeli jails. Nuriel’s body was found near the West Bank town of Ramallah on Monday.
Nuriel was the first Israeli killed since the Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza, completed on Sept. 12 after Israel removed all 21 Jewish settlements, the first from land Palestinians seek for a state.
Nuriel’s death coupled with the rocket attacks from Gaza fueled Israeli fears that the militants could undermine Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s pledge that the Gaza pullout would boost security for the Jewish state.
The executive of Sharon’s Likud party narrowly voted down a motion by on Monday by his rightist rival Benjamin Netanyahu to bring forward a party leadership election in a bid to unseat the prime minister in protest over the evacuation of Gaza.
Despite the vote, Sharon faces a risk of defeat to Netanyahu in a Likud leadership contest set for April if there is no lasting halt to Palestinian violence. The next general election must be held by November 2006.
The violence has also underlined the factional chaos in Gaza confronting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as he seeks to make Gaza a peaceful proving ground for a state Palestinians aspire to build in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians are keen to launch negotiations based on a U.S.-devised “road map” peace plan. Israel rejects such talks before Palestinians disarm militants.
