Israeli forces destroyed two five-story apartment buildings in a Gaza refugee camp early yesterday after evacuating thousands of Palestinians from a neighborhood, residents and the military said.
The military said Palestinian militants used the two buildings to fire rockets and mortars at nearby Jewish settlements and to shoot at Israeli troops. In recent days, 10 Israeli civilians and soldiers were wounded in dozens of attacks from the structures, the military said.
PHOTO: AP
Israeli forces often move into Gaza camps to destroy buildings said to be used by militants, but this was an especially large operation aimed at destroying relatively new apartment houses where dozens of families lived.
Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the "Austrian project" neighborhood of the Khan Younis refugee camp before midnight and ordered 6,000 residents there to leave their homes residents said. They were sent to a schoolyard while soldiers knocked down the two buildings, leaving the camp at daybreak.
At the beginning of the operation, an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a group of Palestinians planting a land mine, exploding the device. Seven people were wounded, three seriously, Palestinian hospital officials said. There is a mosque nearby, but it was not targeted, according to military officials.
Israel is planning to pull out of Gaza and evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements there next year. Armed Palestinian groups are determined to show that they drove the Israelis out, and the Israelis are just as determined to demonstrate that they are in control, hitting at the militants.
The Gaza operation came less than two days after two Palestinian suicide bombers blew up buses in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, killing 16 passengers and shattering a six-month lull in large-scale attacks.
The violent Islamic Hamas claimed responsibility, but in a shift, Israel focused blame on Syria, saying the decision-making center of the violent group shifted to the Syrian capital of Damascus after Israel's assassination earlier this year of the Hamas founder and his successor in Gaza.
"The fact that Hamas is operating from Syria will not grant it immunity," Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told The Associated Press on Wednesday, indicating that Israel might retaliate.
The overall leader of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, and his deputies operate from Syria.
"Syria continues to aid and support Hamas, with training camps and other support," apparently believing Israel would not respond, Gissin said. "This is wrong, they will enjoy no immunity," he warned.
The Israeli army commander, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, said Wednesday that those who support terrorism "cannot sleep quietly at night," mentioning Palestinian leaders, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, Syria and Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon added his own implied threat: "Israel's struggle against terrorism will continue unabated. We will apparently need to decide on additional steps to stop terrorism," he said without elaborating.
On Oct. 5, 2003, Israeli planes struck an Islamic Jihad training camp outside Damascus, a day after a female suicide bomber blew up a restaurant in the Israeli port city of Haifa, killing 21.
Though Israel and Syria are bitter enemies, the air strike was a rare act of violence. Israel has held Syria partly responsible for years of Hezbollah raids from Lebanon and has often threatened Syria. In practice, however, the Israelis hesitate to provoke a conflict with Syria, and the border has been calm for decades.
Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in response to the bombing, Israel would go after local Hamas leaders and step up military patrols in the sparsely populated, barren southern part of the West Bank. The target of Tuesday's bombings was Beersheba, 25km south of the West Bank. Sharon also pledged to finish a contentious West Bank separation barrier, aimed at blocking suicide bombers. The southern section across from Beersheba and has not been built.
"The fence will be completed according to the Cabinet decision, and we are doing all we can to speed up the process as much as possible," Sharon said.
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was seized and taken toward Iran and another — a cargo ship near Oman — sank after being attacked, authorities said on Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It was not immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the US. The turmoil in the strait has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the US and Iran to
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
RSS