Posted on 12/05/2002 6:03:17 PM PST by Mixer
Breaking on FOX News. No other details.
Israeli troops moved into the Bureij camp early Friday with tanks backed by helicopter gunships, sparking intense fighting with Palestinians, spurred on by calls through mosque loudspeakers urging people to come out and fight the troops.
The army said it was conducting a targeted operation and that it was checking the report of the tank shelling.
Kamal Baghdadi, the mayor of the camp in the central Gaza Strip, said the tank shell struck a two-story family home. He said wounded were still being evacuated from the area.
"At this moment we have seven dead and there are seven people being treated for serious wounds, shrapnel, from the strike," said Ahmed Rabah, a doctor at the Al-Aqsa hospital in nearby the nearby village of Deir el Balah. He said it was possible the toll could rise. Rabah did not identify the casualties.
Hassan Safi, 49, said he was 300 yards away in his home when the shell hit.
"I rushed with my sons to the place, which was all destroyed. I myself took out two people, the helicopter was firing with machine guns at us, making it difficult to move," Safi said.
The incursion ended soon after the tank shelling. There were no immediate reports of other casualties in the gunbattle. During the incursion, witnesses said troops also surrounded the home of Jamal Ismail, a suicide bomber who blew himself up along with another man in an explosive-packed boat off the Gaza coast last month, wounding four Israeli soldiers in a nearby navy patrol.
Soldiers also searched the house of Aiman Shasniyeh, a local leader for the Popular Resistance Committee, witnesses said.
A day earlier, an Israeli helicopters fired a missile into a Gaza City building, killing a wanted Palestinian militant. Israel has carried out dozens of targeted killings against suspected Palestinian militants, part of a wider military campaign against militants during the past two years of Mideast fighting.
A White House document obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, in effect, blames the Palestinians for more than two years of violence, charging that the Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and the PLO have not taken steps to stop militants.
The failure to stop militants has thrown into question the Palestinian Authority's acceptance of Israel, the 12-page report says.
Still, President Bush has decided not to impose sanctions, which could have included the downgrading or closing of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington. A memorandum that prefaces the report, dated Nov. 29 and signed by Bush, waives sanctions, saying they would be against U.S. security interests and that the United States "must maintain contacts with all sides."
The memorandum was made public in Washington on Monday, but the remainder of the report was not. It was obtained by the AP in Jerusalem.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat told the AP that he had seen excerpts of the document. He called it "unfair and unacceptable."
The Palestinians blame Israel's military crackdown for fueling the violence. They also say Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have decimated the Palestinian security forces and left them unable to stop militants.
Though the Palestinians have not rescinded their recognition of Israel, the report claims that their "failure to take action against terror groups ... has called into question their commitment of recognizing Israel's right to exist in peace and security."
The report blamed the Palestinian leadership for a "failure to take action against, and in some cases the provision of support for terrorist groups and others engaged in violence."
The Palestinian Authority "has not taken sufficient steps to prevent violence by PA personnel," the report says.
The report says there is no conclusive evidence that militants carried out attacks with the specific approval of Palestinian authorities. But "it is clear that these armed elements were not disciplined."
The report noted that "some PA officials have publicly spoken against suicide bombings and other forms of violence."
Arafat has condemned suicide bomb attacks and other violence against Israeli civilians. However, echoing Israeli complaints, the U.S. report notes that Palestinian leaders "failed consistently to condemn attacks on Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories."
Many Palestinians consider settlers to be combatants, like Israeli soldiers, since they occupy land the Palestinians claim for their own state.
The report is produced twice a year by the White House and transferred to the State Department, which brings it to the attention of Congress, under terms of maintaining the PLO office in Washington.
Also Thursday, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said al-Qaida members have infiltrated Gaza and south Lebanon and are targeting Israel.
"The information says that a small number entered the Gaza Strip. We know they are in Lebanon in close cooperation with Hezbollah. We know they are in the region," Sharon told a Tel Aviv news conference. "There's no doubt that Israel is a target for an attack."
An Internet Web site linked to al-Qaida said the terror group was behind twin attacks in Mombasa, Kenya last week in which three suicide bombers blew up a hotel where Israelis stay, killing 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and themselves, while other terrorists fired two missiles at an Israeli civilian airliner, but missed.
Meanwhile, an aide to an Israeli negotiator said he helped set up a Swiss bank account for a $300 million slush fund for Arafat. The aide, Ozrad Lev, said he made the disclosures out of a fit of conscience.
Lev said he and Yossi Ginossar, a businessman with a security background who was a special envoy in talks with Palestinians, helped open and manage the illegal fund, skimmed from official Palestinian Authority money.
Erekat called the allegations part of an Israeli "smear campaign" against the Palestinian leadership.
That makes the mosque a command and control center for the Arabs shooting at the Israelis. It should, therefore, be treated like any other enemy command and control center: destroy it.
As with using ambulances to carry terrorists to their targets, these sorts of dirty tricks will only play for so long. If the Arabs don't consider mosques too sacred for war making, then the Israelis shouldn't either.
Destroy America.
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