Israeli missile strike kills 9 civilians
14-06-2006
Daily Star:
An Israeli missile strike killed 11 Palestinians, nine of them civilians, in Gaza on Tuesday prompting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accuse Israel of state terrorism.
Hospital officials said the victims included two children, aged four and eight, and their father, in addition to two Islamic Jihad militants. Around 42 other people, including six children, were also wounded.
Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles. The first hit a car, causing it to crash into the pavement. A second missile hit as a crowd gathered and rescuers arrived.
The Israeli Army claimed that the targeted vehicle was "loaded with Katyusha rockets and launchers and they were on their way to launch those Katyusha rockets at Israel."
Rockets could be clearly seen in the wreckage of a yellow van.
The Israeli Army said the projectiles could hit targets up to 20 kilometers away, a range far greater than that of the crude Qassam rockets usually fired by militants from Gaza.
"Today we have said farewell to our martyrs and tomorrow Israel will say farewell to their dead," Islamic Jihad said.
The air strike signaled that Israel would not flinch from targeting rocket squads in densely populated areas in spite of an outcry over the deaths of seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach on Friday in a blast militants blamed on Israeli shellfire.
Still fuming over Friday's deaths, Abbas denounced the latest killings.
"What Israel is doing is called state terrorism," he told reporters at his office in Gaza. "This state terrorism will not shake us."
In separate statements, the Palestinian Cabinet condemned the "ugly massacres" and the armed wing of Hamas threatened to avenge Tuesday's deaths with further rocket attacks on Israeli territory.
Jordan also denounced the "massacre" of civilians.
Spokesman Jasser Joudeh said the "government forcefully condemns Israeli military operations against defenseless civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the policy of blind massacres."
He said the government was in contact with Israel to demand that it put an end to such acts, which he said "poison the atmosphere and complicate the resumption of the peace process."
For his part, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz voiced his "regrets over civilian casualties" but added: "We have been showing restraint due to the international storm caused by the incident on the Gaza beach - but no longer."
A senior Israeli military official said the findings of an army investigation into the beach incident, released on Tuesday, showed the blast was probably not caused by an Israeli artillery shell.
He suggested instead that a land mine planted by a Palestinian group might have been the cause.
In the West Bank, more violence flared between Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas.
Fatah members set fire to two Hamas offices in the towns of Salfit and Qalqilya in the West Bank, witnesses said. Fatah gunmen fired at a facility belonging to Hamas in Nablus.
Nobody was hurt in the incidents, which followed an arson attack by Fatah gunmen on Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya's office at the Palestinian parliamentary building in Ramallah late Monday.
To cap the sense of chaos, one of the few independent members of the Palestinian Cabinet, Tourism Minister Joudeh Mourqos, resigned in protest at the worsening security situation.
In London, the first leg of his first European tour, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he had given the green light to a transfer of light weapons from Jordan to Abbas' personal security force so it can tackle Hamas.
"We want to strengthen Abu Mazen so that he will be able to cope with Hamas," said the Israeli leader, using Abbas' nom de guerre.
An aide to Olmert said around 375 assault rifles had arrived at the Israeli-controlled Allenby crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, which was believed to be around half the agreed consignment.
Former Palestinian Premier, Ahmad Qorei, said that a referendum on a prisoners' proposal implicitly recognizing Israel was "the only way out" to the escalating violence. He warned that Palestinian infighting "may lead to a very bad situation, even a war situation."
Qorei added that if Hamas rejects the referendum's verdict, "then there will be a change of government."
"In my point of view, this referendum is no less [important] than the legislative election," Qorei told Reuters.
"If there is a government to work with this plan, then that is best," Qorei said. "If not, then of course there should be a new election."
Russia, part of the international Quartet on Middle East peace, also called for a halt to "civil strife" among factions.
In Damascus, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahhar warned against feuding between the Palestinians, describing it as a "a plan aimed at causing dissent among the Palestinians inside" the Occupied Territories. - Agencies
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article....ticle_id=73187