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Israel
Kills Pregnant Woman, Child In Gaza Raid
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A Palestinian boy
searches for his belongings in the ruins of his home in the
refugee Bureij camp
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GAZA
CITY, March 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Eight
Palestinians, including a nine-month pregnant woman and a child, were
killed in the Gaza Strip Monday, March 3, as Israel intensified its
barbaric incursions in Gaza.
Around
35 Palestinians were also wounded as Israeli occupation tanks and
armored personnel carriers accompanied infantry units into the El
Bureij refugee camp south of Gaza City, security sources said,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Soldiers
blew up four Palestinian houses after telling residents to leave, but
the 33-year-old pregnant woman who did not leaver her house was
crushed to death.
Among
those shot dead was a 13-year-old boy. The six others killed were aged
between 17 and 24.
Israeli
military sources said two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded when
Palestinian resistance fighters threw hand grenades at them.
The
Hamas resistance movement which has been the main target of
increasingly frequent and deadly raids into Gaza said it had fought
back with rocket-propelled grenades and other explosives.
“U.S.
Concerned”
"We
continue to be seriously concerned about civilian casualties and we
have urged the Israeli government to take all appropriate precautions
to prevent the death and injury of innocent civilians and damage to
civilian and humanitarian infrastructure," U.S. state department
spokesman Richard Boucher said, reported AFP.
"We
are also deeply concerned at the increasing Israeli use over the past
few months of demolitions and the civilian deaths that have resulted
from this practice."
Since
June 2002, the Israeli army has destroyed more than 150 houses
belonging to Palestinians allegedly involved in attacks, a policy
human rights groups describe as collective punishment and which has
drawn U.S. criticism in the past.
Palestinian
health minister Ahmad al-Shibi issued a statement describing the
latest incursion as a "massacre" and condemning the fact
that Palestinian medics were denied access to the injured.
Israeli
army spokesmen sought to play down the casualties from the raid,
insisting they could confirm only two people wounded.
"There
is no support for Palestinian claims that a woman was killed,"
insisted Gaza divisional commander, Brigadier-General Gadi Shamani.
One
of the homes destroyed during the Israeli raid was that of Mohammed
Tahha, 67, a founder member of Hamas and one of the most senior
members of the group to be seized in the 29-month-old Palestinian
Intifada.
Captured
with two of his sons, Tahha was wounded while resisting abduction and
taken to an Israeli hospital. A stash of arms and explosives was found
in his house, the occupation army claimed.
Hamas
responded by firing three home-made rockets at the southern Israeli
town of Sderot, causing no injuries or damage.
Shaul
Mofaz began his second term as Israel's defense minister Sunday with a
pledge to step up the pressure on armed Palestinian resistance
organizations in the Gaza Strip.
"We
want to place the terrorist organizations on the defensive, making
them understand that they are being hunted down, to reduce their
capability to cause harm," he said.
However,
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the real aim of the
latest attack was to torpedo upcoming talks within the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) on constitutional reforms.
"Israel
launched its bloody operation in the Khan Yunis refugee camp and in
the El Bureij camp to sabotage the meeting of the PLO central
committee," Erakat said, referring to a meeting slated for next
Saturday.
On
Monday, thousands of Palestinians followed the bodies of eight
Palestinians killed the same day in an Israeli raid from Deir el-Balah
hospital to the refugee camps of El Bureij and Nusseirat, where they
were buried.
"Death
to Sharon and Mofaz!", they chanted, in reference to the Israeli
Prime Minister and his Defense Minister.
Also
Monday, a Palestinian teenager was critically wounded by Israeli
gunfire fired from a tank as he threw stones with other youths in
Tulkarem, Palestinian security and medical sources said.
Ahmed
al-Hamashi, 15, was hit in the head while one of his fellow
stone-throwers was moderately injured, the sources told AFP. The tank
and another armored vehicle were patrolling the West Bank town at the
time.
In
another development, Palestinian housing minister Ghassan Khatib said
Monday that the Palestinians are awaiting a green light from Israel to
go ahead with meetings aimed at naming a prime minister as part of the
reforms process.
He
said a top Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) body, the Central
Council, is due to convene on Saturday in the West Bank town of
Ramallah.
Meanwhile,
members of the Fatah central committee, the movement which is headed
by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, officially approved the
appointment of a new prime minister at a meeting in Ramallah late
Monday, the group said in a statement.
The
Palestinian Authority is seeking the European Union's help to secure
Israeli authorization for delegates to travel to Ramallah where Arafat
has been pinned down by the Israeli army for the past year, Khatib
told AFP.
The
army has also reoccupied most of the West Bank and controls the
crossing to the territory from the Gaza Strip via Israel.
Veteran
leader Arafat, under Israeli and international pressure to reform his
administration, announced his acceptance of the creation of a prime
minister's post on February 14.
But
Arafat said Monday that if Israel prevented the planned reform
meetings from going ahead it would be proof that it wanted to stifle
the very democratic changes it has said it wants to see, said AFP.
"A
continuation of Israeli military operations and not allowing
Palestinian officials to move will show there is a conspiracy to
prevent us following through on our reform decisions," said
Arafat after meeting with EU, UN and Russian officials.
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