|
Israeli airstrike kills five
01/12/2007 16:24 - (SA)
Gaza City - An Israeli air strike killed five Hamas members early on Saturday, prompting threats by Gaza militants to fire longer-range rockets at Israeli border towns.
In a separate incident, another Palestinian gunman was killed and three injured, medical official said, after they exchanged fire with Israeli forces patrolling the border it shares with the Gaza Strip, bringing the day's total to six Palestinian militants killed on Saturday.
Eight people were wounded, including one critically, in the strike near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, close to the border with Israel, said Moaiya Hassanain of Gaza's Health Ministry.
Hamas said the dead were members of its military wing, while many of the injured belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, a smaller militant group allied with Hamas. Hamas said the men had been on a night patrol east of Khan Younis.
The army said it carried out the strike after identifying armed men near its border with Gaza. '22km is not the ceiling'
Abu Mujahed, a spokesperson for the Popular Resistance Committees, said his group had plans to fire longer-range rockets at Israel. "The real barrage of rockets has not yet began," Abu Mujahed said, adding that "22km is not the ceiling".
It was an apparent reference to 122mm Katyusha rockets that can hit targets 19 to 30kim away, about twice the range of the thousands of homemade Qassam projectiles that Gaza militants have fired at Israel communities in recent years.
In response to the ongoing rocket attacks, Israel began reducing fuel supplies to Gaza in October.
Israel's Supreme Court ruled Friday that the government can continue scaling back fuel shipments, but said it must postpone electricity cuts that were to begin on Sunday. The ruling was in response to a legal challenge from a coalition of human rights groups that claims the policy constitutes collective punishment.
Gaza is dependent on Israel for all of its fuel and about half its electricity.
- AP
|
News
