Israeli Aircraft Hit Palestinian Target in Gaza

14/07/2002| IslamWeb

Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a building in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses and security sources said. The target of the Israeli strike was not immediately clear. Some witnesses and security sources said it was a building housing security facilities and an office of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

Others said it was the house of Ahmed Abed al-Wahab, a militant killed five months ago in an apparent attack on a nearby Jewish settlement. His uncle, who also lived in the house, is a wanted militant in the Islamic Hamas organization.

Two people were lightly hurt in the raid on the vacant building, near the town of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. The building was destroyed in the attack.

Israel's air force has targeted Palestinian security installations and carried out strikes against suspected militants since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupatgion began 21 months ago.

Israel Says Caught Palestinian Gunman-Bomber

Israeli occupation troops captured a Palestinian would-be bomber after he opened fire at a military patrol conducting searches outside a Palestinian village near the West Bank .

The incident late Saturday night put central Israel in a high state of alert, a reminder of violence still simmering despite a near-total Israeli military closure of the West Bank and curfew on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents. (Read photo caption)

Israeli media reports said the Resistance man had intended to disguise himself as an Israeli soldier and travel to the northern Israeli city of Afula, where he would open fire and then blow himself up.

In the Gaza Strip -- where, as in the West Bank, Palestinians are waging a 21-month-old uprising for independence -- militants fired five mortar bombs at a Jewish settlement, hurting no one according to occupation army sources. An Israeli armored column later scoured the nearby Palestinian town of Deir al-Balah.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli soldiers prepare to shoot tear gas grenades at stone throwing Palestinian youths in Bethlehem's Dehishe refugee camp July 13, 2002. Israel said on Saturday it had delayed indefinitely a meeting with Palestinian ministers to ease security and economic restrictions in a setback to efforts aimed at restoring relations. (Magnus Johansson/Reuters)