Posted on 07/15/2005 11:57:15 AM PDT by Nachum
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Militants took control of a Gaza neighborhood Friday after a shootout with Palestinian troops left two teenagers dead, and Israeli airstrikes killed five militants in a flare-up of violence that threatened an already tattered truce.
Palestinian security forces, under pressure to stop attacks on Israel, went on high alert. Israeli troops massed at two makeshift camps outside the volatile coastal strip.
As militants launched at least 53 rockets and mortars against Israeli targets between Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz summoned top generals to a meeting to decide on a course of action.
The violence follows five months of relative calm following a February truce accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Gaza clashes erupted after Palestinian security forces raided a neighborhood, searching for militants suspected of firing rockets. Militants later torched a police station and set a police armored personnel carrier and three jeeps afire.
Thick black smoke from burning tires rose from the neighborhood, as masked Hamas gunmen stood guard outside the police station.
Two teenage boys, ages 17 and 13, were killed in crossfire.
At least 25 people were wounded, including six policemen and 19 civilians, hospital officials said. It was not clear whether Hamas gunmen were hurt; the militants were not expected to take their activists to hospitals for fear of arrest.
After heavy exchanges of fire, police pulled out of the neighborhood while masked gunmen took up positions on street corners and rooftops. Hundreds of civilians flocked to the streets, watching the fighting.
Later, an Israeli airstrike on an abandoned house about two miles from the West Bank town of Salfit killed one Hamas militant and gravely wounded another.
Residents said they heard a helicopter in the area, and then the sounds of three explosions and machine-gun fire.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircraft destroyed a van carrying a group of Hamas militants and a cache of homemade rockets in a Gaza City street, killing four Hamas militants, the army and Palestinian officials said.
The explosion scattered shards of metal and body parts hundreds of yards away.
The Israeli military said the airstrike targeted senior Hamas weapons manufacturers on their way to launching more rockets at Israeli targets.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the airstrikes, saying they came "at a time when we are trying to maintain the rule of law and the (unity) of our authority." The airstrikes, he said, will "undermine our ability to do so."
But Israel said it was only targeting those involved in terror attacks against them.
"We are taking these measures to stop these attacks as the Palestinian Authority refuses to do so," said a statement from Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office.
Israel and the United States have called on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to crack down on the militants, who killed six Israelis this week - five in a suicide bombing in Netanya and one in a rocket attack near Gaza.
The tough Palestinian police action in Gaza on Friday suggested a possible shift in policy for Abbas, who was reluctant in the past to confront the militants. Palestinian security chief Nasser Yousef said Friday his forces will "not hesitate" to restore law and order, and he ordered rocket attacks to be stopped by all means.
But the Israeli airstrikes, which could mean the resumption of Israel's policy of targeted killings against Hamas leaders, appeared to signal that Israel has run out of patience with Abbas, who had previously shied away from facing down the militants.
In firing rockets and mortars, Hamas also was underscoring demands to share power in Gaza after Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank next month.
Sakher Bseisso, a Palestinian Cabinet minister involved in previous contacts with Hamas, said the militants were leaving Abbas little choice but to crack down.
"Hamas is trying to impose its control on the ground," he said.
The militants said the rocket and mortar attacks were in retaliation for Israeli military operations. Earlier this week, a Palestinian police officer and a militant were killed by army fire following the suicide attack that killed five Israelis.
"Israel violated the truce, not us," Mohammed Ghazal, a Hamas spokesman, said referring to the two Palestinians killed this week. "Mortar fire was a response."
The violence Friday came just hours after a rocket fired from Gaza killed Dana Glakowitz, 22, in an Israeli communal farm just outside Gaza.
The February cease-fire accord was the main achievement of Abbas' brief rule. As long as it held, he was able to defend his policy of co-opting the militants, rather than confronting them.
"Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned the airstrikes, saying they came "at a time when we are trying to maintain the rule of law and the (unity) of our authority." The airstrikes, he said, will "undermine our ability to do so."
The Pali DISinformation Minister
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