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Israel kills top militant

The body of the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Nablus, Fadi Khafisha, is carried into the morgue of the West Bank city's main hospital yesterday. Qafisheh, 29, was killed in Nablus' old town in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers, according to security and Palestinian medical sources. PHOTO: AFP

Israeli troops killed a top militant commander in the West Bank yesterday, while Palestinian fighters in Gaza renewed rocket attacks that had largely stopped during Israel's Lebanon war.

There were no reports of casualties from the rocket barrage.

While a truce has halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, violence between the Jewish state and Palestinian militants shows no sign of subsiding.

During a raid in the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot dead Fadi Khafisha of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group, Palestinian security sources said.

Khafisha was known for helping plan suicide bombings in Israel, they said.

Israeli soldiers shot him in the Old City of Nablus.

Another senior militant was among five people wounded in an exchange of fire, the security sources said.

An army spokeswoman said the gunmen fired first. She said troops shot one of them but could not confirm Khafisha's death.

From Gaza, militants launched makeshift rockets at southern Israeli towns, the first barrage fired in weeks, the army said.

Up to seven hit the border town of Sderot. Another landed in the city of Ashkelon.

"After a period of calm we woke up this morning to explosions. The house next to ours sustained a direct hit and a shed caught fire," resident Mordechai Omeed in Sderot told the YNet News Web site.

The barrage came one day after Abbas urged militants in Gaza to stop firing what he called "pointless rockets" which he said harmed the interests of Palestinians.

Abbas made the comments before travelling to Gaza for talks with leaders of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement on trying to create a unity government.

An Israeli security chief said this week that Palestinian militants may have been emboldened after Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel and killed scores of troops in ground fighting during the 34-day war.

Israel launched an offensive in Gaza in late June that has reduced the rocket fire and the fresh barrage could trigger a tough response.

Earlier yesterday, Israeli soldiers searching for tunnels and explosives withdrew from the outskirts of Gaza City, the army said, ending a five-day operation that Palestinians said left 20 people dead, and heavily damaged houses, streets and farmlands.

The army released footage and photos on Wednesday of what it described as a tunnel dug by militants from the Shajaiyeh neighborhood to the Karni crossing, the main cargo passage between Gaza and Israel.

The tunnel, which was 13m deep and 150m long and reinforced with wooden beams, was to be used to attack Israeli soldiers at the crossing, the army said.
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