Israeli troops killed at least seven Palestinians yesterday in the fiercest fighting in northern Gaza since the army invaded 10 days ago.
Palestinian witnesses in the town of Beit Hanoun said five of the dead were gunmen, including Nahed Abu Odah, local commander of the armed wing of the Islamic militant group Hamas, and two were non-combatants.
Colonel Avi Levy, commander of Israeli forces in the area, said his men reported eight or nine Palestinians were killed and that one soldier was wounded.
PHOTO: AP
Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopters also swept into part of Khan Younis refugee camp and bulldozed several buildings, an army spokesman said.
He said the buildings were uninhabited, while Palestinian witnesses reported troops with loudspeakers ordered families out of houses targeted for demolition.
Violence has surged in Gaza in the run-up to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the area by the end of next year, as Palestinian militants and the army vie for supremacy.
Faced with the possibility of a power vacuum in Gaza after an Israeli pullout, international mediators have stepped up pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to institute security reforms to help keep militants in check.
Envoys from the US, Russia, the UN and the European Union told Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie on Wednesday the world had run out of patience with Arafat's "empty promises" of change, said a senior diplomat.
In separate comments yesterday, UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen called in an Israel Radio interview for "necessary security reforms on the Palestinian side so that all ... terrorism and violence comes to a complete halt."
The latest fighting in Gaza's densely populated Beit Hanoun area erupted on the 10th day of an open-ended Israeli incursion that began after a child and an adult were killed by a rocket fired at the Israeli border town of Sderot.
"Twelve rockets have been launched since the operation started, but their effectiveness and the frequency of the attacks are down because we are in the field," Levy said in Jerusalem.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, vowed that resistance would not stop as long as Israeli aggression continued.
A gunman in Beit Hanoun said his squad was trying to leave town via a back road when they were surprised by Israeli special forces on the ground and soldiers firing from rooftops.
"Three (of my comrades) were killed. I crawled away. A man came out of his house to help but he was hit by a sniper. A woman and her daughter were watching from their doorstep and were also hit by gunfire," he said.
Hospital officials said the man and the woman were killed. Asked about civilian casualties, Levy said no non-combatants were shot intentionally.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS