Heavy Fighting in Gaza(News) [Archive]

seruriermarshal

05-12-2004, 09:13 AM

Israeli Soldiers Launch Gaza Incursion

20 minutes ago

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli troops launched a massive incursion into a Gaza neighborhood on Wednesday, firing missiles, demolishing buildings and scouring rooftops, in a bid to recover the body parts of six soldiers killed the day before by Palestinian militants.

Five Palestinians were killed in Wednesday's fighting, which began shortly after daybreak and raged throughout the day. Three of the dead were killed in a missile strike and 42 people, many of them civilians, were wounded, Palestinian hospital officials said.

Israeli helicopters fired two missiles during the fighting. One attack hit a building, wounding nine people. The second strike hit a crowd of people gathered outside a mosque, killing three people, including a 16-year-old boy.

The army said both attacks were aimed at militants planting bombs.

Israel had promised a harsh reprisal following Tuesday's bombing, which blew up an Israeli armored personnel carrier and killed six soldiers.

After the attack, Palestinian militants flaunted soldiers' body parts for TV cameras.

The Palestinian Authority (news - web sites), along with Egypt, urged Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants to return the remains. But militants showed no signs of caving in to the pressure.

Israel said it would not negotiate with the militants and vowed to continue its operation until it recovers the bodies.

Israel is known for going to great lengths to recover the remains of fallen soldiers, both because Jewish law requires the body to be buried intact and the army fears militants will try to use the remains as bargaining chips.

Israel has carried out a number of lopsided deals, most recently in January, exchanging hundreds of Arab prisoners for the remains of dead soldiers.

After an overnight lull, the heavily armed Israeli forces, backed by tanks and combat helicopters, resumed their searches.

Gun battles erupted with Palestinian militants. Tens of thousands of residents in the densely populated Zeitoun neighborhood — scene of Tuesday's explosion — were confined to their homes.

Another man was killed when he tried to fire an anti-tank missile at troops, and a 35-year-old falafel stand owner was hit by army gunfire.

Soldiers stormed dozens of shops and garages, scouring rooftops and balconies for body parts.

Massive bulldozers flattened agricultural land, uprooted trees, crushed cars and destroyed parts of the main road and remains of water pipes damaged in Tuesday's fighting.

Dozens of Palestinian youths crowded Zeitoun's dusty streets as ambulances whizzed by and black smoke billowed into the air.

At one point, a bearded militant in a flakjacket stumbled out of a smoky alleyway with a head wound. An Israeli helicopter hovered overhead, unleashing occasional bursts of fire.

Gunmen milled around the streets alongside civilians gathering to get a glimpse of the damage.

The army called on all males over the age of 16 to gather in a nearby field. The army also told Palestinian officials that it had shut down Gaza's border crossings into Egypt and Israel and barred Palestinian fishermen from going to sea.

The violence followed fighting Tuesday that killed eight Palestinians. Palestinian residents said another person was killed Tuesday and buried under rubble, but the report could not be independently confirmed.

Saed Abdullah, a 45-year-old father of six who lives about near the site of Tuesday's explosion, said he and his children spent hours hiding under beds as bullets penetrated the house, shattering windows and destroying furniture.

Soldiers stormed the house, locking the family in a room for more than five hours, Abdullah said. Then they used him and two other neighbors as "human shields" as they searched the neighborhood, he added.

Tuesday's fighting began as a routine Israeli operation to uncover and destroy weapons workshops in Gaza City, but changed direction when the explosives-laden armored vehicle ran over an improvised bomb.

Masked Palestinian gunmen rushed to collect body parts following the explosion, saying they would use the flesh to barter with Israel for the release of prisoners. Israel rejected the demand outright.

Brig. Gen. Ruth Yaron, the army's chief spokeswoman, said members of all Palestinian militant factions were holding body parts, but the military believes most of the remains can be found in a limited area around the explosion.

"The searches since yesterday morning and until now have borne a great deal of results," Yaron told Israel's Army Radio.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the roadside bomb. Two other militant groups, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades — linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) movement — and Islamic Jihad, also said they had some of the remains.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority was "exerting every possible effort" to return the body parts to Israel.

He said "there are contacts" with the militant groups, and that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had ordered his security forces to make every effort to collect the parts "without delays."

Jibril Rajoub, a top Palestinian security official, said Egypt — often a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians — had joined the effort to persuade the militants to release the remains.

But Al Aqsa said it would not cave in to the pressure. It issued a statement saying that it and Islamic Jihad would keep body parts until the army retreats from Zeitoun and releases the bodies of dead Palestinian militants.

The six soldiers' deaths — the most killed in a single army operation since November 2002 — renewed debate in Israel over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s proposal to withdraw from Gaza. The area is home to 7,500 Jewish settlers and some 1.3 million Palestinians.

His "disengagement" plan was rejected by his Likud Party in a May 2 referendum.

In the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, four Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli troops. The army said two Palestinians were wounded while trying to detonate an explosive at soldiers. One of the wounded was arrested and taken for treatment at an Israeli hospital, the army added.