Posted on 11/13/2002 5:57:35 PM PST by HAL9000
Incursion of Israeli tanks in Gaza close to the residence of sheik Yassine
Thursday November 14, 2002 - 0h55 GMT
GAZA, Nov. 14 (AFRP) - a score of Israeli tanks penetrated in the night of Wednesday to Thursday inside the town of Gaza and were with two hundred meters of the house of the founder of the Islamic movement Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassine, indicated witnesses.
Three Palestinian police officers at least were wounded by the shootings of the tanks and the three helicopters which take part in this incursion. The seat of the Palestinian television, which is in the same district, was mitraillé by the tanks, one added same sources.
Members of the service of Palestinian safety preventive, who controlled a station in the invested district, escaped while taking along the prisoners who were in the building, specified these sources.
Questioned by the AFP, the spokesman of the Israeli army refused with any comment.
Sheik Yassine, head spiritual of Hamas, which moves only in wheel chair, justified very often the continuation of the attacks and attacks commits suicide anti-Israelis.
The previous night, the Israeli army had re-occupied in force the Palestinian city of Naplouse, in the north of the West Bank, the framework of reprisals carried out following a bloody attack against a kibbutz of the north of Israel.
The Minister for Defense Shaoul Mofaz declared that the reoccupying of Naplouse "was not limited in time" and would continue until its objectives are achieved, namely the destruction of the "terrorist infrastructures" and the reduction at least of the attacks coming from this area.
The operation of raking, baptized "Wheels of acceleration", consists in passing to the fine comb the agglomeration of more than 150.000 inhabitants. About thirty sought Palestinians, for the majority of the activists of the movement islamist Hamas, were stopped in the city, according to the army.
This operation had been in preparation for several weeks, but the attack perpetrated Sunday evening against the kibbutz (village collectivist) Metzer, in the north of Israel, was used as catalyst.
This attack, during which a member of the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs, groups related to the movement Fatah de Yasser Arafat, mitraillé in their room to lay down a woman and his two little boys, upset the Israeli public opinion. Two other Israelis were killed in the attack whose author succeeded in fleeing.
In the Gaza Strip, three years a Palestinian baby was killed Wednesday evening and his mother seriously wounded in their house with Rafah, touched by shells of Israeli tanks. Its death changes to 2.665 the number of killed since the beginning of Intifada in September 2000, including 1.969 Palestinian side and 647 Israeli side.
Israeli forces enter edge of Gaza City-witnesses
GAZA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles rolled into the southern outskirts of Palestinian-ruled Gaza City early on Thursday, witnesses and security sources said.
They said a convoy of about 50 vehicles had entered the As-Sabra neighbourhood of the Gaza Strip's main city where Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas, lives.
It was not clear if Yassin was at home but aides say he often spends the night elsewhere as a precaution.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment. It has been trying to rein in Hamas, which has carried out a series of suicide bombings in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel has also sent tanks and troops into the West Bank cities of Nablus and Tulkarm this week in raids which it says are intended to root out militants after a Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis at a kibbutz in northern Israel on Sunday.
Of course not. These newfangled electric powered wheel chairs give their owners unheard of mobility.
Not that old technique!
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP)--Israeli forces backed by 30 tanks and three helicopters stormed into central Gaza City early Thursday, the deepest incursion into the city in more than two years, Palestinian security officials and witnesses said.
Soldiers fired machine guns as they penetrated roughly more than a mile into the city from its southern entrance, witnesses said.
The army declined immediate comment.
Witnesses said that at least two bulldozers joined the operation, suggesting that forces might be planning to destroy homes of suspected militants, a frequent tactic used by Israel.
The army rolled into the central Talalhawa neighborhood, in an area that is home to the headquarters of the Palestinian Preventive Security and the studios of Palestinian state television.
Troops also swept into the neighborhood of Sabra, which is home to many members of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, including its spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
Two Palestinians, including a guard at the television station, were taken to hospital with light injuries. At least a dozen ambulances rushed to the area of the siege, witnesses said.
The incursion marked the farthest penetration by Israeli forces into the city since renewed fighting erupted between Palestinians and Israelis in the fall of 2000, witnesses said.
In a pre-dawn strike a day earlier, Israeli helicopters fired four missiles on a suspected weapons-making workshop in the city center, the second such strike on the site in two days.
The attack demolished an automotive repair shop whose owner insisted had nothing to do with the manufacture of weapons. Israel said the site was believed to produce mortar shells and rockets like ones used in recent attacks on nearby Israeli communities.
Copyright 2002, The Associated Press.
Not that old technique!
Fell for that twice last month!
They allways seem so hyper to fight when the BBC cameras come around.
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