Hundreds of gunmen from the shadowy Army of Islam marched in a funeral for five Gaza militants on Thursday, firing in the air in their first ever public appearance in such large numbers.
The five Army of Islam members buried on Thursday were among the 12 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes over two days. The Israeli military said it has targeted militants involved in rocket fire on Israeli border towns.
A statement from the group posted on Islamic Web sites on Thursday said a sixth member wounded in Wednesday's strike against its men had since died of his injuries, but did not say when.
PHOTO: AFP
The Army of Islam, an offshoot of Hamas, has been linked to the March kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, since released, and the capture in June last year of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Some 300 Army of Islam gunmen marched in Thursday's funeral procession. Sporting long beards and black headbands, many wore dark robes, a style of dress more common in Afghanistan or Pakistan than in Gaza. Gunmen, some wearing masks, fired in the air from Kalashnikov and M-16 assault rifles.
The Israeli army said it had targeted the Army of Islam members because their jeep was carrying homemade rockets ready for use. Thirteen rockets and dozens of mortar shells have hit Israel since Wednesday, despite warnings by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he is moving closer to ordering a large-scale military offensive in Gaza. The rockets caused no injuries.
The Israeli military said ground forces fired at a Palestinian rocket-launching squad in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, after rockets were launched at Israel.
Palestinian security officials said a militant of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was killed by the Israeli fire. They said he was not participating in the rocket fire but was moving, armed, near a launch site when he was hit.
Following the airstrikes, Israeli tanks and bulldozers briefly entered the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, in response to rocket fire from the area. At one point, a tank shell was fired toward a group of people between two houses, killing four and wounding 25, witnesses and hospital doctors said.
Early on Thursday, Israeli aircraft fired a missile toward a group of militants near Beit Hanoun, killing two and wounding five.
David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said Israel's strikes are part of a "continuous policy of preventing `terrorist' activity against our civilians, including our taking pre-emptive measures as needed to thwart these attacks."
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the