Latest News | Breaking News | Hot Current news /Hot waves

Three Islamic Jihad militants were killed yesterday in an Israel Air Force strike on the northern Gaza Strip while attempting to fire rockets into Israel, and another Palestinian was seriously injured in the strike.

Ten Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in the past two weeks, which have seen dozens of rockets and mortar shells launched at Israel.
Advertisement

Despite the apparent escalation of violence, Israel Defense Forces officials said Hamas is not interested in a broader confrontation with Israel, and predict calm will soon return to the Gaza border.

Israeli aircraft struck the militant cell around 7 P.M. last night. IDF officials told Haaretz the Jihad operatives were spotted while setting up rocket launchers east of the city of Dir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

One of the men killed was Awad Nasir, a 29-year-old resident of the city who was a senior commander of the Al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad's armed wing. It is possible the cell Nasir headed was operating independently, without direct orders from the organization's leadership.

Hassan al-Qatarawi, 22, of Bureij refugee camp, and Hudhaifa al-Hams, 23, of Nuseirat refugee camp, both aides of Nasir, were also killed in the strike.

Several high-ranking IDF officers said they do not think Hamas is behind the recent rocket and mortar fire, although last week the Islamist group did downgrade efforts to prevent smaller, more radical factions from launching projectiles into Israel.

The officers said Hamas' decision to loosen its reins over smaller factions in Gaza may be an attempt to allow them to express their anger at the Israeli strikes and at Egypt's plan to erect a wall between Egypt and Gaza. Hamas and the smaller factions are worried that the barrier will severely limit Gazans' ability to smuggle weapons and other goods into the Strip.

The IDF officers said it was difficult to predict the next phase of Israel's conflict with Hamas.

"We've seen in the past how confrontations have developed even if the major power holders have no interest in them," said one. "Hamas must know that Israel will respond to any aggression against it, and that if necessary, will know how to exact a price from the landlords in the Strip - the group's leadership."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting yesterday that the IDF is striking rocket manufacturing facilities in Gaza, as well as the smuggling tunnels by which Iranian weapons are reaching the territory. "The government's policy is clear: Every rocket on our soil will be met with force," he said.

Hamas sought to play down yesterday's air strike, giving it minimal space on its official Web site. However, a Hamas parliamentarian, Mushir al-Masri, said the strike showed Israel was seeking an escalation with the group, and that a Palestinian response was only a matter of time.

"The resistance will choose the time and place" for such a response, Masri said. "The Palestinian people will protect itself with all means and methods at its disposal."

Palestinian medical sources said yesterday that two other Palestinians had been killed in an IDF strike in the northern Gaza Strip, a statement the army denied.
source-haaretz.com