Israeli helicopters attacked a Hamas training field in Gaza City early yesterday, killing at least 13 militants and wounding 25 other Palestinians, witnesses said, in the bloodiest incident there in four months.
In a statement, the Israeli military said the air force targeted a field Hamas used to assemble a large bomb and a suicide bomber's vest, practice hijacking vehicles and train in preparing and firing mortars and rockets. Israel frequently targets Palestinian militants in Gaza air strikes and other military operations.
PHOTO: AP
There was pandemonium at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after midnight as the casualties arrived in ambulances and cars. Blood-spattered Palestinians carried dead and wounded into the emergency room, while others went straight to the morgue carrying plastic bags with body parts.
Hundreds of angry Palestinians, many of them members of the Hamas military wing with blood on their clothes, gathered outside, shouting "Revenge, revenge."
Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said, "This bloody crime is a new wave of aggression committed against our people and against our sons." He added, "It's an ongoing war. One day for us and one day for them."
Hamas claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing in Israel's south last Tuesday, killing 16 Israelis. The bombers came from the West Bank city of Hebron.
There was some confusion over the number of dead because the blasts dismembered some of the bodies. One hospital official said 14 were killed. The first 11 identified were all Hamas members in their 20s, none of them senior figures.
A statement by the Hamas military wing said the Israeli military struck a "scouts camp where a group of fighters was training" and pledged revenge.
With smoke rising from the field in the Shajaiyeh section of Gaza City, a known Hamas stronghold, Palestinians were seen searching the blacked-out area with candles and flashlights, looking for victims.
The Israeli statement said training at the site "was led by senior Hamas terrorists who were involved in the carrying out of deadly terror attacks and attempted attacks."
The military said the suicide bomb prepared at the site was discovered last Tuesday in the underwear of a Palestinian at the Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel.
The air strike was the bloodiest incident in Gaza City since May. In a week of heavy fighting in the city then, 31 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers were killed.
The violence came as Israel prepared for its planned pullout from Gaza next year. According to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "unilateral disengagement" plan, Israel is to evacuate all 21 Gaza settlements and pull its soldiers out of the territory.
Palestinian groups have been stepping up their attacks to try to show that they're driving the Israelis out, and the Israelis are hitting the militants to counter that claim.
Sharon's plan hit a minor snag when Israel's civil service commissioner ruled that an office set up to deal with compensation for settlers to be evacuated is operating without authorization.
The commissioner noted that the office has no approved budget, and without that, its 10 clerks cannot be officially hired. The hitch appeared to be a minor technical matter, but settler activists hotly opposed to the pullout grasped at it as evidence that Sharon's plan is improper.
Sharon's Likud Party has voted against his plan twice in different frameworks, and Sharon's efforts to bolster his coalition government, weakened by opposition to the withdrawal, have so far failed. However, Sharon insists on pushing ahead, bringing the evacuation of the settlements forward to the beginning of next year instead of the end.
On Monday, visiting Egyptian officials told Palestinian leaders that they would not send experts to Gaza to help train Palestinian forces to take control there unless Israel accepts a ceasefire, a Palestinian official said.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to discuss cease-fire efforts and the planned Israeli pullout from Gaza.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said that the Egyptians called for Palestinian unity. Egypt has been trying unsuccessfully for more than a year to forge a common Palestinian declaration of a truce in the conflict with Israel.
Shaath said Egypt is calling a meeting at the end of the month with all the Palestinian factions to press the truce idea.
"Until Israel accepts a comprehensive ceasefire, they will not send their experts to Gaza," Shaath said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not