Israel quietly liquidates the external threat of daily missles for breakfast
23 Palestinians killed in IDF Gaza raids over weekend
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and News Agencies
An Israel Defense Forces non-commissioned officer was seriously wounded Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip when militants threw an explosive device at troops. The officer's family has been notified.
Earlier Saturday, five Hamas militants and a civilian were killed in a series of incidents in the Strip, bringing to 38 the Palestinian death toll there since the start of an IDF operation Wednesday.
The civilian was reportedly killed when a wall collapsed on him.
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The Popular Resistance Committees militant group said in Gaza the military operation jeopardized prospects for the safe release of Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier captured by Hamas-allied militants in June.
A spokesman for the group, using the alias Abu Abir, also said Israel would face a wave of suicide bombings if the offensive was not halted within two days.
The stepped-up offensive is aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire on border communities in southern Israel.
In the early hours Saturday, an Israel Air Force strike destroyed a minivan in Gaza City, killing top Hamas rocket-maker Louay al-Borno and seriously wounding two others traveling in the vehicle.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, said the all men in the vehicle were militants. The IDF confirmed the air strike, saying Hamas militants were the targets of the attack.
Hamas gunmen also attacked a house used by IDF soldiers, setting off explosives and firing rockets, Abu Obeida said. He said one gunman was killed in the fighting there.
Palestinian witnesses reported that two other Hamas gunman died, one killed by an IDF sniper and the other by a tank shell.
Witnesses also said that a Palestinian civilian was killed when an IDF tank shell brought down his small home, burying him under rubble.
The army had no immediate comment on the incident, or the reports of house demolitions.
Also Saturday morning, witnesses reported that large military bulldozers began demolishing homes near a mosque that was the scene of a standoff on Friday. Witnesses said residents of the homes received no warning ahead of time and were seen running for safety.
Residents also reported six IAF strikes in Beit Hanun overnight, but said there were no injuries.
Atef Adwan, minister of refugee affairs in the Hamas government, told a local Hamas radio station Saturday that IDF troops had taken over the rooftop of his Beit Hanun home and posted snipers there. He said he and his family fled to a neighbor's house.
By mid-morning Saturday, the army announced over loudspeakers that women were permitted to leave their homes for two hours to stock up on supplies. However, few shops were open, said resident Samia Adwan, 35, a secretary in the Palestinian Authority and a distant relative of the Hamas minister.
She said she saw outer walls destroyed by bulldozers, streets carved up by tanks, and dangling electricity wires.
Iyad Nasser, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said he reached Beit Hanun on Friday evening to deliver supplies to the local hospital. "People stood at the doors [to their homes] and shouted they need water and food," he said.
On Saturday morning, aid groups were permitted to deliver supplies to Beit Hanun, he said.
A senior Israeli military official confirmed that the Beit Hanun sweep was different from previous Israeli incursions into Gaza, which resumed after Shalit's kidnapping by Hamas militants. In the past, he said, troops would largely stay on the outskirts of populated areas instead of operating house-to-house as in Beit Hanun.
The Palestinians appealed for international intervention to pressure Israel to halt the campaign.
17 Palestinians killed Friday
At least 17 Palestinians, including five civilians, were killed in IDF operations Friday in the Gaza Strip.
On Friday night, three IAF strikes around the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya and the southern town of Rafah killed seven militants and wounded several more, Palestinian security officials said.
A few hours earlier, an air strike hit a makeshift mosque on the outskirts of Beit Hanun, killing at least one person and injuring three others.
The small building, known as the Abdullah Azzem Mosque, was used for prayer but did not have the outward signs or markings of a mosque.
The IDF said it targeted a group of militants who were planting an explosive device near a road junction. The militants were out in the open, the army said, and no building was targeted in the strike.
Earlier Friday, a 40-year-old woman was killed by IDF fire as women flocked to a Beit Hanun mosque to act as human shields for some 60 gunmen holed up inside. Two other civilians - youths aged 15 and 19 - were also said to have been killed.
In the early hours of the morning, Palestinian officials said a four-year-old boy died of wounds sustained in shelling in Beit Hanun the day before.
Mosque standoff
The 19-hour standoff between IDF troops and the gunmen inside the mosque ended after the gunmen fled, the army and witnesses said. The militants escaped under cover of the protest by the women outside, the IDF said. A military source said some of the gunmen had surrendered to the soldiers.
Still, troops and militants continued to trade fire in two buildings next to the mosque, and the IDF surrounded the Beit Hanun hospital, calling on militants inside to surrender, Israel Radio reported.
Palestinian witnesses and hospital officials said that the woman was killed and several others wounded when IDF troops opened fire on the women.
The mosque became the focus of the fighting in Beit Hanun after gunmen fled there late Thursday. Most were thought to belong to Hamas' military wing.
IDF tanks and armored personnel carriers quickly surrounded the building, and the two sides began exchanging fire that lasted throughout the night, the military and Palestinian security officials said.
Soldiers trying to pressure the gunmen to surrender also threw stun and smoke grenades, and knocked down an outer wall of the mosque with a bulldozer. The roof of the mosque later collapsed.
A Hamas radio station had broadcast a call to women to go to Beit Hanun to shield the militants. Dozens of women left their homes to hurry to the mosque and came under IDF fire on their way, witnesses and officials said.
The army said that troops had spotted two militants hiding in the crowd of women and opened fire.
As the women rushed away from the scene, at least two men disguised in women's clothes were seen in the crowd. Jubilant bystanders embraced them, celebrating their escape.
"Our fighters made holes through the nearby houses to the mosque. The women entered the mosque as the fighters managed to guide the gunmen out," said Hamas militant commander Abu Ubaida.
Israel had allowed trucks loaded with medical and food supplies to reach hospitals, and for ambulances to evacuate the wounded, said Colonel Nir Press, head of Israel's Coordination and Liaison Administration for the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas "saluted the women of Palestine ... who led the protest to break the siege of Beit Hanun." Haniyeh urged United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to witness firsthand "the massacres of the Palestinian people," and appealed to the Arab world to "stop the ongoing bloodshed."
Dozens of protesters also took sanctuary in a UN school in Beit Hanun, fearing retribution by troops, said Imad Okal, an official with the UN Relief and Works Agency, who said he was in touch with people at the school.
Loudspeakers across Gaza called on people to come to demonstrations after Friday prayers to express solidarity with Beit Hanun. Tens of thousands representing various Palestinian factions massed in streets throughout the Strip.
Also Friday, a Hamas gunman was killed during clashes in Beit Hanun and four militants from Iz al-Din al-Qassam, Hamas' military wing, were killed in an IAF strike in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sajaiya.
Palestinians launched ten Qassam rockets at the Negev on Friday and fired an anti-tank rocket at an IDF post in south Gaza, lightly wounding a soldier. According to the military, 300 rockets have been fired at Israel from Beit Hanun since the start of the year.
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