The Israeli army canceled an air raid on the home of a Gaza militant yesterday after several hundred Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the building, an Israeli military spokesman and witnesses said.
Palestinian sources called the protest the first of its kind to have prevented an air strike by the Israeli military, which said it did so in order to avoid inflicting civilian casualties.
Israel had served a customary warning to the family of a militant of the Popular Resistance Committees in Jebalya refugee camp to promptly evacuate their home because it would soon be bombed, the spokesman and witnesses said.
PHOTO: AP
Hundreds of neighbors and protesters gathered at the site, many barricading themselves inside the house and on its roof in defiance of the warning, witnesses said.
Later an Israeli military spokesman confirmed the raid had been called off because of the protest.
The spokesman vowed Israel would continue its strikes against militants, and accused gunmen of using the civilians in the camp as human shields.
As part of a fight against militants firing rockets from Gaza at Israel, the Israeli military often bombs the homes of gunmen from time to time -- but after warning family members to leave so as to avoid casualties.
Israel has also been under pressure to avoid killing civilians in Gaza since an artillery shell killed 19 in Beit Hanoun on Nov. 8 in an attack criticized internationally, for which Israel apologized and said it was a technical failure.
In the past Gaza occupants have promptly evacuated their homes after receiving an Israeli bomb warning, and air strikes have often followed within the hour.
But after the protest at Jabalya, militant leaders broadcast calls urging Gazan residents to resist future Israeli bomb threats in a similar fashion.
"We call upon all the fighters to reject evacuating their houses and we urge our people to rush into the threatened houses and make human shields," Abu Abir, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees said.
Also yesterday, three Israelis were wounded, one of them seriously, when rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip crashed into the southern town of Sderot, military sources said.
The casualties were caused in two rocket attacks, which also damaged several buildings in the town, where six people have died in such strikes since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000.
The attacks came with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set to convene his weekly Cabinet meeting for talks to focus on the Gaza Strip and steps that can be taken to stop the rocket fire.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS