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Israel Demolishes 8 Houses, Part Of Mosque In Gaza
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Israeli bulldozers occupying the Gaza Strip destroyed 8 Palestinian houses and part of a mosque
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GAZA
CITY, May 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli bulldozers
occupying the Gaza
Strip destroyed 8 Palestinian houses and part of a mosque on Monday, May
19, as three Israeli soldiers were slightly injured when a Palestinian
bomber riding a bike detonated his explosives as they passed in a jeep
in the Gaza Strip.
Four
of the houses were in the southern town of Rafah in a district very
close to the border which is the site of the majority of Israeli
demolition activity, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
The
border is one of the flashpoints of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
the army has been demolishing dozens of houses in the sector which it
claims hide the entrances to tunnels used by activists to smuggle arms
from Egypt.
Bulldozers
also destroyed four more houses and part of a mosque in the northern
town of Beit Hanun, they said.
They
also razed some 200 dunams (20 hectares) of agricultural land in the
area which has been the site of heavy military activity since the end of
last week.
Israeli
troops launched an incursion the northern Gaza
Strip last Thursday, May 15, morning.
Since
last August, the Israeli army has dynamited over 200 houses in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a policy denounced by
human rights organizations as constituting collective punishment and
also criticized by the United States.
The
Israeli army sealed off the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday, May 18,
following a double bombing attack in occupied Jerusalem, as Israeli
officials said the government mulled the possibility of removing
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
A
curfew had earlier been imposed on the city, and the adjacent towns of
Beitunia and Al-Bireh but was later lifted, the army said.
Resistance
Attack Injures 3 Israeli Soldiers in Gaza
Also
on Monday, three Israeli soldiers were slightly injured when a
Palestinian bomber riding a bike detonated his explosives as they passed
in a jeep in the Gaza Strip.
The
incident, in which the bomber died, took place near the Kfar Darom
Jewish settlement, an Israeli military source said.
Palestinian
residents told AFP that they heard a loud explosion in the area.
The
attack was claimed by the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, whose armed
wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades named the bomber as Shadi Salman
al-Nabahin, 21, from the Bureij refugee camp.
"We
will burn the earth beneath the feet of the Zionists occupiers,"
Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, vowed in a statement
a copy of which was faxed to IslamOnline.net and promised more attacks.
"We
will continue to escalate our operations because it is out of the
question to halt the resistance against the Zionist occupation,"
the statement said.
"The
glorious operations are in retaliation for the assassination of Ibrahim
Al-Maqadmeh," the statement said in reference to the Hamas security
chief killed with three of his bodyguards on March 8 by the Israeli army
in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas
also claimed responsibility for those attacks on Saturday and Sunday.
The
death of Nabahin brought to 3,254 the number of people killed in the
Palestinian uprising which broke out in September 2000, including 2,455
Palestinians and 739 Israelis.
Israel
Seals Off West Bank, Gaza Strip
Meanwhile,
Palestinians were unable to move in or out of Israel Monday after the army sealed off the West Bank
and Gaza Strip following a spate of attacks on Israeli targets over the
weekend.
The
closure of the roads in and out of Israel
was a concrete reminder of the problems facing the international
"road map" drawn up to bring peace to the region and usher in
a Palestinian state in 2005.
Thousands
of Palestinians were unable to travel to work in Israel as a result of
the measures.
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