Israeli troops rolled into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun early yesterday, sparking heavy fighting with local militants and killing at least seven Palestinians, most of them when a tank shell hit a house, medical officials said.
A mother and her four children were killed when the tank shell hit the house, an official at the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Palestinian medics identified the dead children as sisters Rudina and Hana Abu Mo’tiq, ages 6 and 3; and their brothers, Saleh, 4, and Mousab, 15 months.
Witnesses said the shell was aimed at an Islamic Jihad militant, who had just launched an anti-tank missile at the Israeli troops and was killed too.
The mother of the Abu Mo’tiq family was initially critically injured and in a state of clinical death, but died of her wounds in hospital shortly afterwards.
A Hamas gunman was also killed by a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter gunship providing cover for the ground troops.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army entered the town, near Gaza’s northern border with Israel, because it was a “very central rocket launching area.”
Hundreds of locally-made Qassam, al-Quds and Nasser rockets have been fired from Beit Hanoun and its surroundings at Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip.
Militants from the area also launched attacks at Israeli soldiers patrolling the border, and snipers have opened fire at Israeli farmers working on the Israeli side of the border fence, she said.
The military said it was checking the reports that civilians were killed in the tank shelling.
But the spokeswoman said that “when militants are acting from within a populated area, they take on themselves the risk that civilians will be hurt too. We of course do not aim at civilians.”
She said the operation in Beit Hanoun was continuing.
Beit Hanoun farmer Omar Abdel Nabi said he was driving his tractor in a nearby field when two or three explosions shook the ground.
“People were screaming that a tank shell landed in the next street,” he told reporters. “I carried two people covered in blood out of a house.”
The children were taken to a local hospital morgue, where distraught family members and medics stood over the bodies, wailing and flailing their hands in the air.
In recent weeks, militants have tried to infiltrate the border at least four times. They say the operations are a response to Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza. Israel has sealed Gaza’s borders since the Hamas takeover, greatly restricting the flow of fuel, cement and other basic goods into the area and worsening the hardship in the already impoverished area.
Egypt, which borders Gaza’s south, has been trying to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Last week, the Islamic militant group said it would agree to a six-month truce with Israel. The Israelis have dismissed the offer, saying Hamas will use the lull to rearm. Officials also reportedly say Hamas must control smaller and even more radical armed groups, such as Islamic Jihad, for a ceasefire to work.
While battling Hamas in Gaza, Israel has been conducting peace talks with the rival Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. The sides hope to reach a peace deal by the end of the year, though Abbas complained after a trip to the White House last week that he was growing pessimistic about the lack of progress in negotiations.
Early on Monday, the Israeli army lifted a blanket closure of the West Bank and Gaza it had imposed for 10 days over the Jewish Passover holiday.
The lockdown, imposed on April 18, barred Palestinians from entering Israel. Israel routinely seals the Palestinian territories during Jewish holidays, seen as a time of high risk of attack as Jews gather in public places for prayer and celebration.
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