The Israeli military killed seven Palestinians as fierce fighting erupted yesterday after ground troops backed by air power pushed into the Gaza Strip, stepping up pressure on the Hamas-run enclave.
Israeli troops and tanks pushed across the border into the central Gaza Strip to the outskirts of the Mughazi refugee camp, where they became locked in heavy firefights with Palestinian militants, medical sources and the army said.
The military called in two air strikes during fighting that left seven Palestinians dead, six of them fighters in Hamas' armed wing, including local militant leader Mohammed Siam, medics said.
More than 25 Palestinians were wounded, including two seriously, in the heavy clashes about 1km into Gaza, from which Israel withdrew all troops and settlers in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.
A cameraman working under fire for Hamas' Al-Aqsa television had both legs amputated. Imad Ghanem, 23, was first hit by a shell in the legs and then by two bullets fired into his crumpled body as it lay on the ground, medics said.
The military said the troops and tanks were "operating against terror infrastructure" in the central Gaza Strip and that it was investigating the circumstances of the incident in which the cameraman was shot.
"We identified hitting approximately 10 armed gunmen in two air strikes and in exchanges of fire on the ground. Two [Israeli]soldiers were wounded by an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fired at a bulldozer in the central Gaza Strip and were evacuated," an army spokesman said.
An Israeli military source said that Hamas television cameramen "cannot be considered as journalists, as they are part of Hamas' armed wing and their films are used for propaganda and intelligence purposes."
Witnesses said Israeli troops were also operating in northern Gaza on the outskirts of Beit Hanun, where two militants were wounded overnight. The army said the two were attempting to fire rockets at Israel.
Although Israel has vowed to bolster Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his new Western-backed emergency government based in the occupied West Bank, it has sworn to continue attacks on militants.
Abbas sacked a Hamas-led unity government in the crisis that saw the Islamists seize control of Gaza on June 15 in a deadly takeover that humiliated the mainstream security services loyal to the president's Fatah party.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS