Two suspected Palestinian militants died and an Israeli soldier was wounded late on Saturday in an exchange of gunfire near the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, the Israeli army announced.
Soldiers spotted the two Palestinians near the security barrier separating Israel from Gaza and opened fire, killing them after a gun battle lasting about 20 minutes, an army spokesman said.
“During searches at the scene, shots were fired at the force, apparently resulting in the injury of one of the soldiers,” an army statement said.
Israeli soldiers fired back. There were no further casualties on their side.
The injured soldier was evacuated by helicopter.
Palestinian witnesses told reporters they saw armed men exchange fire with Israeli soldiers before two Israeli tanks and two armored troop carriers entered about 100m into the Palestinian zone.
Earlier on Saturday, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel without causing casualties or damage, an Israeli military spokesman said.
Gaza-based Palestinian militants have fired about 200 rockets and mortars into Israel this year. Eight attacks have been recorded in the past week.
Clashes along the barrier dividing Israel and the Gaza Strip have increased in past weeks and the army statement said there had been about 100 “terror-related incidents” there since the beginning of the year.
The army blamed Hamas, the party that controls the Gaza Strip, and warned it will “continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the state of Israel.”
On Dec. 2, two fighters from Islamic Jihad were killed as they approached the border.
Israel’s military commander Gaby Ashkenazi has said the security situation along the border remains fragile, with the army saying armed Palestinian groups are equipped with anti-tank rockets.
On Friday, two Palestinian teenagers were killed in a blast in Gaza City thought to be caused by an unexploded Israeli tank shell, medical and security sources said.
They said the shell was most likely left over from Israel’s 22-day war against Gaza’s Islamist rulers, dubbed Operation Cast Lead, which began at the end of December 2008 and cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.
The latest violence comes as weeks of efforts by Washington to save the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians appear to have failed.
The US was unable to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on building Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the