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Israel Mounts Fresh Attacks on Gaza
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Palestinians stand on roof of destroyed Fatah office building after it was hit by a missile. (Reuters).
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By
Mustafa el-Sawwaf, IOL Correspondent
GAZA
CITY, October 25, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - At least five Palestinians
were critically injured, including a toddler and three women, when
Israeli warplanes launched Tuesday, October 25, fresh missile strikes on
the Gaza Strip.
The
strikes targeted an Islamic Jihad charity and health center in the Rafah-based
Al-Shabura refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, eyewitnesses told
IslamOnline.net.
The
missile attack left Al-Ihasn charity and two other buildings of Fatah
ruined and badly damaged nearby houses.
The
injured included a four-month-old toddler, an elderly woman and her two
daughters, according to Dr. Ali Moussa, director of the Mohammad Yusuf
An-Najar hospital in Rafah.
Israel
mounted similar strikes overnight on the town of Beit Lahya and launched
mock raids over Um Al-Nasr village in northern Gaza Strip.
Israel
said the attacks came in response to a salvo of rockets fired by Islamic
Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades military wing on the town of Sderot.
The
Brigades mounted attacks in retaliation for Israel's assassination of a
top Islamic Jihad leader.
Louai
Saadi, overall commander of the Brigades in the West Bank, was one of
two Palestinians killed by undercover Israeli soldiers Sunday, October
23, in the northern city of Tulkarm.
Though
Islamic Jihad has stated its commitment to the truce along with most
other groups, it has insisted it has the right to respond to Israeli
raids.
Palestinian
resistance factions have been observing a de facto truce since
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was elected in January, an agreement
that was cemented at talks brokered by Egypt last March.
The
shaky truce has repeatedly been put to the test by Israeli
assassinations of resistance activists.
Israel
quit Gaza on Sept. 12 after 38 years of occupation, evacuating 8,500
settlers under what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called a plan to
"disengage" from conflict with Palestinians.
But
James Wolfensohn, the international peace envoy and broker of the Gaza
pullout blasted Israel Monday, October 24, for foot-dragging on opening
Gaza Strip border crossings following its withdrawal, turning the strip
into an open-air prison.
Israel
was "almost acting as though there has been no withdrawal, delaying
making difficult decisions and preferring to take difficult matters back
into slow-moving subcommittees," Wolfensohn
told the Mideast
Quartet Committee in a letter.
Palestinians
hope Gaza will become the embryo of a much-hoped state. They want their
state to include the larger West Bank and occupied Al-Quds (Arab East
Jerusalem).
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