Posted on 11/22/2006 9:40:07 AM PST by NormsRevenge
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip - Israeli ground troops, tanks and armored vehicles advanced on two northern Gaza towns Wednesday in pursuit of Palestinian rocket squads, besieging a well-known Hamas lawmaker's house and engaging militants in ferocious clashes, Palestinian officials said.
Militants, undeterred by Israel's military might, pressed ahead with their rocket attacks on southern Israel. A 22-year-old Palestinian affiliated with the military wing of the ruling Hamas party was shot and killed while launching a projectile, the group said. Earlier in the day, a rocket hit an Israeli school just before pupils arrived.
The surge in violence coincided with a decision by the Red Cross to suspend activities in Gaza after two of its workers were briefly kidnapped. The suspension dealt a major blow to aid efforts in the impoverished territory where Red Cross ambulances are a common sight.
Snipers positioned themselves on more than a dozen rooftops in Beit Hanoun and Jebaliya in northern Gaza as the ground troops fanned out, Palestinian security officials said. Three teenage Palestinian girls were wounded by Israeli gunfire outside a school in Beit Hanoun, hospital and security officials said.
Militants, led by gunmen from the ruling Hamas party's military wing, faced off against troops in both towns with land mines, antitank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, security officials said. Hamas commanders instructed their gunmen not to travel in cars for fear they would draw Israeli airstrikes.
Troops also took over the home of a Hamas legislator who earlier in the month helped to organize a women's demonstration that let dozens of militants escape an Israeli siege on a Beit Hanoun mosque, the lawmaker, Jamila Shanti, told The Associated Press.
She was not in the house at the time, contrary to Palestinian security officials' earlier report.
A bulldozer chipped away at the walls of the two-story structure so troops could enter, relatives inside the house and neighbors told her, she said. Once inside, they locked about 15 members of her family, including five children, into a single room and threw furniture and clothes out of windows, she said.
"They are only making us more stubborn," she said. "We will resist with our last drop of blood."
Bulldozers, skirting regular roads where mines could be planted, also created new routes of access by knocking down greenhouses in Jebaliya, Beit Hanoun and neighboring Beit Lahiya, and two small farmers' houses.
The army confirmed it was operating in the area as part of its ongoing offensive against Gaza rocket squads, but gave no other details. It said it had no information that its troops were surrounding Shanti's house.
Beit Hanoun was the site of a weeklong incursion earlier this month in which 50 militants and at least seven civilians were killed. The operation left behind a wide swath of destruction but failed to curb the rocket attacks. In the first three weeks of November, militants launched 155 rockets, up from about 70 in October and 65 in September, the army said.
"We advise the occupation to spare itself the effort of invading Gaza, because this is not going to stop rockets" said Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeidah. "It's going to escalate rocket fire."
Late Tuesday, an Israeli man wounded by Palestinian rocket fire earlier in the day died of his injuries.
"No government would tolerate such attacks, and neither will Israel," said Israeli government official David Baker, after the second rocket fatality within a week.
Separately, a rocket fired from Gaza hit the entrance of a school in southern Israel early Wednesday. Another rocket fell nearby and a third hit a farm close to the Israel-Gaza border fence, damaging a chicken coop. No one was hurt in the attacks.
At a meeting Wednesday of Israel's Security Cabinet, senior government ministers were in broad agreement that there was no point to pursuing a large-scale offensive against Gaza militants without a political goal, a meeting participant said.
Israel has been boycotting the Hamas-led government, which took power in March, because it has refused to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a pragmatist from the Fatah Party, have agreed to try to restart peace talks, but Abbas has been reluctant to schedule a meeting without assurances he will reap something, such as a release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Two top Olmert aides are to meet with two top Abbas aides in the West Bank town of Ramallah to discuss Palestinian efforts to form a more moderate coalition government and the release of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas-linked militants.
Separately, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Security Cabinet that officials were instructed to broaden their search for defense systems to protect Israeli citizens against the homemade rockets, the meeting participant said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
In other violence, Israeli tank fire killed a member of Hamas' police force in northern Gaza, Palestinian officials said. The army said it fired at a group of armed men laying explosive charges in the path of soldiers operating in the area. Palestinians said he was standing with a group of men outside a building.
On Tuesday evening, a former Fatah Cabinet minister, Abdel Aziz Shahin, 62, was shot and wounded in Gaza City just after criticizing the ruling Hamas group on a radio show, hospital officials said.
Abbas, who visited Shahin in the hospital, deplored the escalation of Israeli military activities at a time when he said Palestinian factions were discussing a cease-fire. Commenting on the attack on Shahin and the kidnapping of two Italian aid workers by Gaza gunmen on Tuesday, Abbas said he hoped a planned coalition government would allow Palestinians to "live in peace and security."
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Louise Arbour, center, listens to Editor of Studies Dr. David Silberklang, as Israeli Ambassador to Geneva Itzhak Levanon, left, looks on in the Hall of Names during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006. Arbour is on a five-day trip to Israel and the Palestinian areas. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)
and then retreat..
Israeli armoured military vehicles move out of the Gaza Strip into Kibbutz Mefalsim November 22, 2006. Israel's security cabinet agreed to press on with military raids and 'targeted killings' in Gaza but did not order a large-scale assault in response to a wave of Palestinian rocket attacks. REUTERS/Yonathan Weitzman (ISRAEL)
DOH!
An Israeli soldier stands atop a tank near Kibbutz Mefalsim, just outside the northern Gaza Strip, November 22, 2006. Israel's security cabinet on Wednesday agreed to press on with military raids and 'targeted killings' in Gaza but did not order a large-scale assault in response to a wave of Palestinian rocket attacks. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte (ISRAEL)
Bounce the rubble, lads.
In case anyone might miss them, Red Cross ambulances used to transport terrorists will still remain a common sight.
Transporting terrorists and you can bet their rockets too.
Some are as old as 22?
Perhaps the "red cross" should quit feeding them guns, RPG's and rockets. They aren't very nourishing.
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