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Israel Set To Isolate Rafah, Strikes Fatah Office
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Israeli tanks move into Rafah
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RAFAH,
May 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli occupation
troops launched early Monday, May 17, a sweeping operation into Rafah
to isolate the southern Gaza Strip city from the rest of the strip and
neighboring Egypt, just hours after Israeli warplanes attacked an
office of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in
Gaza City.
A
massive number of Israeli troops were deployed in the operation,
backed by at least seven tanks, armored bulldozers, helicopter
gunships, Israel’s Ha'aretz daily reported.
Palestinian
resistance fighters and Israeli troops exchanged sporadic gunfire in
the area, according to eyewitnesses.
Military
bulldozers further piled sand embankments across the main road,
setting stage for the isolation, the Israeli paper added.
Deep
Trench
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General view of houses destroyed in Rafah
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Israel
is also weighing a plan to dig a deep trench, costing millions of
shekels, to run the length of the Philadelphi Route, the buffer zone
between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in order to further isolate the
Palestinian Rafah from the neighboring Egyptian town carrying the same
name.
Israel
Channel Two reported Sunday, May 16, that the trench is aimed at
preventing what it alleged to be weapons smuggling from Egypt.
It
would be 60 to 80m wide and 20m deep. Between the trench and the
nearest Palestinian houses, would be a clear 150m stretch of ground.
Israeli
Colonel Yuval Dvir told Army Radio Monday that it would be
"idiotic" for Israel to maintain control of the Philadelphi
Route after it pulls out of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday
that the occupation army would work to "create a new
reality" along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered on May 2 the most serious setback
since assuming power in 2001, when his Likud party overwhelmingly
rejected his disengagement plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Last
week, 13 Israeli occupation soldiers were killed in three separate
attacks across Gaza, two of them in the southern Gaza Strip.
According
to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), more than 1,000
Palestinians have been made homeless in Rafah after two days of
intensive Israeli demolition of house.
"On
entering the camp this morning, we found 88 buildings demolished which
had housed 206 families. It affects 1,064 people," said Paul
McCann, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The
systematic demolition policy was given the green-light from the
Israel’s Supreme court on Sunday.
Also
Monday, the bodies of three Palestinians who were killed by Israeli
forces near Gaza City were handed over to Palestinian authorities.
Israeli
occupation sources said that the three were attempting to infiltrate
into Jewish settlements to carry out anti-Israeli operations.
The
latest deaths bring the overall toll since the September 2000 start of
the Palestinian Intifada to 4,025, including 3,037 Palestinians and
918 Israelis.
Fatah
Attacked
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Palestinian man carries a wounded boy after the Israeli missile attack on a Fatah building (AFP)
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The
incursion came just hours after Israeli helicopter gunships fired
rockets at multiple targets in Gaza City, including a building used by
Fatah Movement.
One
rocket struck in the neighborhood of Sejahiya next to an office
belonging to the Palestinian resistance movement Islamic Jihad,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Two
people were wounded in the attack which caused substantial damage to
the building.
A
second helicopter later fired two rockets in the Nasser neighborhood
of Gaza City, hitting the offices of al-Rissalah newspaper,
according to an AFP correspondent on the scene.
One
person was injured in that attack which also seriously damaged the
building.
An
Israeli occupation army spokesman confirmed the two raids, saying the
first had targetted an office of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an
armed group linked to Fatah.
The
office was "making preparations for terrorist operations"
against Israeli targets, he claimed.
The
second raid was aimed at a "newspaper linked to Hamas" which
was "inciting violence and transmitting Hamas messages to armed
groups", he added.
Israel
tried but failed to assassinate a leader of Islamic Jihad, Mohammed
al-Hindi in the Gaza Strip Saturday, May 15.
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