JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An Israeli navy gunboat fired shells into northern Gaza
on Friday, killing at least seven people on a beach where Palestinians were picnicking, Palestinian medical sources said.
Five militants also died earlier Friday in Israeli strikes, Palestinian sources said.
Also Friday, the military wing of Hamas called off a 16-month-old cease-fire with Israel.
A spokesman for HamasSami Abu Zuhri, said it was "impossible to remain silent" after viewing "terrifying pictures of the women and children" on the beach. (Watch the aftermath on the beach -- :46)
"These demonstrations emphasize the necessity of the renewal of the struggle," he said.
The IDF apologized and said it "regretted the strike on innocents," the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The Israeli paper quoted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as condemning the killings as a "bloody massacre."
A mass demonstration erupted in Gaza City, where protesters called for revenge, including Thursday's killing of a Hamas official in an Israeli missile strike.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was shelling rocket-launching areas in Gaza from the sea. A representative said the areas were believed to be uninhabited.
The IDF halted firing pending an investigation of the strike on the beach at the village of Beit Lahya.
Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the IDF's chief of general staff, said the military is investigating the possibility that it was not naval artillery that struck the beach.
Video footage from the beach showed ambulance workers carrying away injured people on stretchers. A young girl was screaming for a parent in the footage.
Palestinian security sources said about 20 others were injured when Israeli shells hit the beach.
Earlier Friday, also in the Beit Lahya area, the IDF said militants launched a Qassam rocket that landed in Israel but caused no damage or casualties.
The militants got into a car, which the Israeli air force then attacked, according to the IDF. A large explosion followed. The IDF said it believed the blast was due to explosives in the car.
The three dead were members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a coalition of militant groups, Palestinian security sources said. Palestinian sources said the dead included two brothers and a cousin.
After the attack in Beit Lahya, a car was hit at Jabalya refuge camp, killing two militants, Palestinian sources said.
Last summer, under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel withdrew from Gaza, and Israeli forces forcibly removed about 8,000 settlers from Gaza and four small areas of the West Bank.
Maybe if militants would have avoided shooting missles into israel with the aim of trying to kill innocents in schools... this would never have happend. I hate how the inncoent end up dieing. The IDF was definitly wrong to do this... but these are responses to attacks on innocent Israelis.... and the aim of these shells are to kill militants trying to kill innocent. The fact that they did not have 100% information on who was at the beach is very terrible, and should be investigated.
The Kassam rocket that was launched into a school in Sderot, Israel by Palestinian Militants
Defense Minister Amir Peretz woke up Wednesday to the sound of Kassam rockets landing just meters from his home in the southern town of Sderot and vowed to take swift action to prevent additional rocket fire.
Four Kassam rockets landed in the Western Negev Wednesday morning with two striking homes in Sderot, one landing in an open field and the fourth landing inside the nearby kibbutz of Or Haner. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attacks. Two people suffered from shock after their Sderot apartment building - not far from Peretz' home - was struck by a rocket. The attacks came 24 hours after an elite IDF unit operated on the ground for the first time in Gaza since disengagement and killed four Islamic Jihad operatives in the midst of setting up Kassam rocket launchers.
In response to Wednesday's attack, IDF artillery cannons pounded Kassasm launch sites in the northern Gaza Strip.
Peretz, who was shaken awake by the sound of the Red Dawn Kassam alarm, postponed his trip to Jerusalem where he was scheduled to participate in the first meeting of the security cabinet and instead visited the home of his neighbor Moti Ashkenazi, 50 meters from his own home and struck by one of the rockets.
"I was supposed to go to the security cabinet meeting but ten minutes before I was set to wake up I heard the Red Dawn alarm go off and then a large explosion," Peretz recalled Wednesday. "Unfortunately this is not the first time that Kassam rockets have fallen next to my home."
The IDF, Peretz said, would continue utilizing all of the resources at its disposal to curb the rocket fire including additional ground operations deep inside the Gaza Strip. "I am a man of peace but no one should disillusion themselves into thinking that we will go easy on Kassam launchers," he said as he surveyed the damage caused to his neighbor's home. "We will take action that will prevent these terrorists from succeeding in launching Kassams at Israel."
OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Gallant joined the defense minister in asserting that the IDF was making great efforts to prevent terror cells from launching rockets at Israel. While some attacks did succeed, Galant said that the IDF had noted a decrease in both the number and accuracy of the rockets.
The IDF, the Jerusalem Post has learned was is in the midst of developing new technology capable of granting better protection to the Gaza-belt communities against the homemade and primitive Kassam rockets. The technology would defend the communities from the rocket fire as well as have the ability to attack terror cells on the ground before they launch the rockets.
"We will find the way to take actions that prevent these organizations from firing toward Sderot and other communities," Peretz said Wednesday. "Therefore I hope that the [Palestinian] population understands that these organizations are bringing them toward a catastrophe."
Ashkenazi, whose home was damaged by the rocket, said that Kassams have become a part of life in Sderot. "With time, the senses dull a bit and we continue with our daily routine" he said. "Subconsciously, we know that when it falls on the right and falls on the left one day it will [also] strike our home."
Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal urged the government to take action against the rockets that have plagued his city for years. In interviews he asserted that the solution was not occasional military activity, but rather "either decimating the area from where the launches take place, or controlling the area." jpost.com
palestinian have air craft and mass weapon!!!! u r really blind
Daily Israel kill innocent people so they have the right to answer them
in what vr they have
Palestinians have been launching Kassam Rockets, and Missles into Israel throughout this whole "cease fire" which they have supposidly agreed to. Then Israel responds by attacking the areas the terrorists are (which are always highly populated on purpose, thats why they choose those bases) and then everyone is "even" and just more bloodshed is spilt! When will it end....
There were probably terrorists in the area. They use highly populated areas as bases so Israel will have a tough time responding when they shoot missles at schools. It sad how they use these innocent people whose only crime was to be at the beach as there "sandbags"
I remember when a bunch of dumb UK citizens went out to Iraq as "volunteer human sheilds" as they were going to stand outside hospitals and schools as human shields.
They quickly came home when Saddam got them standing outside a sensitive military base.
so the Israelis show their intelligence by just attacking civilians in these crowded areas
oh joy thats justified
i know of americans who have been to both israel and palestine and the strip, but i will leave what they saw and whos worse to myself, if everyone just took a trip there they would get the real image and stop relying on media thats so pro israel and anti palestine making them look like savages.
It is just sad that innocent are always in the crossfire. Maybe if Hamas decided to actually recondnize Israel's right to "exist" in the Middle East
And did not claim that the only way they will ever stop blowing up cafe's and shooting rockets at schools was when Israel became an "Islamic State" maybe the peace process would go along. Israel can't make peace with a group who seeks to destroy it....
format_quote Originally Posted by Crystal4Peace
so the Israelis show their intelligence by just attacking civilians in these crowded areas
Oh and like the Palestinians are better??? they don't even shoot with the intent to kill Soldiers... they just go blow themselves up in a Cafe' and kill an American like Danile Wultz!
When will Hamas step up and sit down at the peace table!
Hamas makes all of there bases near Civillian populated areas so when they attack they can hide behind the children and women. What do you expect israel to do?
Sit there and do nothing when hamas launches a rocket into a school!?!
Arabs were planning to attack Israel and Israel then ended up taking the arab land during the war!
If the Arabs captured tel Aviv would they give it back to Israel? So why should Israel give any land back that they captured????
Did Jordan or Egypt even try to make a Palestinian state when they had the Gaza strip and West Bank?!?
Great Post!
The Arab world would never have given any land back if they captured any when they started the ILLEGAL WAR of 1948.... So why should israel give any back after they captured it... especially since it is proven that the Arabs were ready to attack israel!
Israel= mostly europeans who came over
palestine= native arabs
moral of the story is who stole what? and this question is not about religion
and btw im mostly white so this isnt racist
and on another note doesnt it say somewhere in the Torah that jews are not to have a seperate place?
lmao ganes everytime a discussion that has anything to do with "muslims are bad" u jump in, come on dont make me track all ur posts and prove this, you can write an anti muslim book on all your posts here
Oh really! My family has lived in Northern Israel for over 8 generations (as long as we can go back probably longer)
There are millions of Mizrahi Jews... heck Jews have been living in israel before Islam was created!
and by the way it sais that no where. It is an interpretation of the torah held by 20,000 of the 15 Million Jews around the world.... and there beliefs follows that they will reclaim and create Israel when the messiah arrives expelling all Non-Jews.
Us regular Jews actually believe in living side by side with a peace partner...we are still looking for one it is not in hamas.... maybe fatah.
your right on that note but most of people currently in israel now are white as can be io had a friend who just came back the majority are european with european values aka im better then u views, this goes far beyond judaism and islam, it has a racist tone as well, take some history classes
Palestinians were never forced from there homes when Israel was created... The GRAND MUFTI (ally of Hitler) ordered them to leave and come back when the Arab Nation destroyed israel... guess what israel survived and those Palestinains who left after Israel asked them to stay and create a Nation together were never able to come back.
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