Posted on 11/18/2006 3:30:08 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
Hundreds of Palestinians formed a human shield around the home of a terrorist in the northern Gaza Strip late Saturday to prevent an IAF airstrike on the building, residents said.
People flocked to the home of Mohammedweil Baroud after he received a warning from the army late Saturday giving him 30 minutes to leave the house.
Barhoud is a commander in the Popular Resistance Committees in the northern town of Beit Lahiya who is charge of firing homemade rockets at Israel.
The incident was the first time Palestinians have tried to prevent an airstrike.
The crowd chanted anti-Israel and anti-American slogans, and people said they were prepared to give their lives to protect the home. "Yes to martyrdom, no to surrender," the crowd chanted.
"We came here to protect this fighter, to protect his house and to prove that we are capable of defeating this Zionist policy," said Nizar Rayan, a local Hamas leader who joined the protest.
The IDF had no immediate comment.
Meanwhile, at least five Palestinians were killed over the weekend during IDF operations in the northern Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Kalkilya.
Two Palestinians were killed and three soldiers from an IDF undercover unit were wounded during clashes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya Saturday.
In Kalkilya, troops laid siege to the home of a senior Hamas member on Friday, killing three gunmen, and wounding more than 30 people, including two in critical condition, according to Palestinian hospital officials.
Approximately 200 rioters attacked soldiers with rocks and firebombs shortly after they surrounded the home late Friday, the army said.
The soldiers responded with warning shots and then live fire. A firefight with gunmen ensued, the army said.
Overnight Friday, IAF aircraft destroyed the Gaza City home of a Hamas member - a neighbor of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. No one was wounded but several nearby buildings were damaged, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.
Two other air strikes destroyed a weapons storehouses in the area a short time later. Secondary explosions indicated that the building contained large amounts of weapons and explosives, the IDF said.
Hamas officials said the army had ordered the home's owner, a local Hamas commander, to evacuate the structure ahead of the air strike. The IDF usually issues such warnings, to avoid casualties, before destroying suspected weapons-storage facilities.
Haniyeh was reportedly at home at the time.
Late Thursday night, soldiers from the Duvdevan unit arrested senior Fatah-Tanzim leader Muhammad Zeitawi in Tulkarm. According to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Zeitawi is responsible for the murder of eight Israelis, including restaurateurs Motti Dayan and Etgar Zeituni. Zeituni and Dayan, who owned the Yuppies Cafe on Rehov Sheinkin in Tel Aviv, were killed when they went to the West Bank town to buy plants together with an Israeli Arab friend in January 2001.
The troops imposed a siege on Zeitawi's home on Thursday afternoon. When he refused to come out, IDF bulldozers started to destroy the structure, leading Zeitawi to surrender.
The Israelis should have targeted the house anyway ...
End of problem.
-ccm
Sounds like a target rich environment!!
Drive them all into the Sea.
Drive them all into the ground.
Give him 30 seconds notice instead of 30 minutes.
Leni
smoke the compadres
What did President Bush say in a speach a few years ago...
If you support a terrorist, protect a terrorist, finance a terrorist....
It would seem that they all identified themselves as
Terrorists!
It should have been "Splat!, Kaboom!, etal"
Sympathy...Just...Not....Coming.
Had it been a group of Israeli civilians attempting to shield a home targeted by Hamas, the level of the attack would have been intensified.
Works for me.
But instead we send them cash and now weapons. I prefer sending them to their moon god reward as you stated.
Your terms are,,,,acceptable.
They should start giving notice every day, Have the crowds form outside the home and laugh at them.
They would soon tire of the game, then bomb hell out of the house.
An airstrike with a couple of CBU cannisters would assure no more human shields form again in the northern Gaza Strip. Ever.
Why wait for them to tire of the game? Just bomb the hell out of the house every time.
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