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Israel keeps up Gaza attacks
02/03/2008 16:16 - (SA)
Gaza City - Israeli strikes killed seven Palestinians in the north of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Sunday as the military kept up a massive blitz against rocket-firing militants, medics said.
Three people, including a civilian and a Hamas militant, were killed in two separate strikes early in the day in the north, where Israeli ground and air troops were operating for a second day, they said.
Another two people were killed by gunfire near the northern town of Jabaliya, medics said.
Later Sunday, two Palestinians were killed when an Israeli tank shell crashed into a house in Jabaliya, which has borne the brunt of the fighting.
An army spokesperson said ground troops were continuing to operate in the north of Gaza and air strikes had targeted armed men, weapon manufacturing sites and warehouses throughout the territory.
Two bodies of women were pulled out on Sunday from beneath the rubble of houses destroyed in Israeli strikes in Jabaliya the previous day, medics said.
70 killed in one week
Sunday's deaths brought to 70 the number of people killed by the Israeli military since early Saturday, in the bloodiest operation in Gaza since the outbreak of Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
Two Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
The massive Israeli air and ground blitz is aimed at halting near-daily rocket fire from the territory where the Islamist movement Hamas, pledged to Israel's destruction, violently seized control more than eight months ago.
The rockets have killed 14 civilians inside Israel since 2000.
Violence around Gaza sharply escalated early Wednesday after an Israeli strike killed five Hamas militants and gunmen launched a volley of rockets in retaliation, killing one man inside Israel.
Since then, just over 100 Palestinians have been killed, including 39 children and nine women, health officials in Gaza said on Sunday.
Hamas has said 35 of its fighters have died, along with more than a dozen militants from other groups.
Gaza blitz
In the occupied West Bank town of Hebron on Sunday, a Palestinian teen was killed by Israeli troops during a demonstration against the Gaza blitz.
Since Israelis and Palestinians revived their peace negotiations under US stewardship in late November at least 304 people have been killed, most of them Gaza militants, according to an AFP count.
Sunday's deaths bring to 6 267 the number of people killed since September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to a separate AFP tally.
- AFP
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