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Israel hits Palestinian security compound

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 April 2006, 11:08 CDT

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli missiles hit a Palestinian security compound in Gaza on Tuesday, the first such air strike in two years, and Israeli shells killed a Palestinian in the north of the strip after rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

The missile attack in Gaza City wounded a policeman. Hamas said Israel was trying to send a message in response to the Islamic group's victory in January parliamentary elections.

Israel said it was responding to Palestinian cross-border rocket attacks.

Israel's YNet Web site said one of about a dozen projectiles fired from Gaza landed in an industrial area on the outskirts of the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon, narrowly missing a storage area for flammable materials.

The Israeli military said it had carried out two separate air attacks, one on an open field in northern Gaza from where militants fire rockets, and the other on an "open, unpopulated space" in Gaza City.

Israel launched the strikes shortly after interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his centrist Kadima Party expected center-left Labor to be its senior partner in a coalition government being formed after elections last week.

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiyeh, separate Israeli fire killed at least one person and wounded about seven others, including several in a house, Palestinian security officials said. One of those wounded in the house was a four-month-old girl, Reuters television pictures showed.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said artillery fire targeted rocket launching sites.

"There was no intent to hit any homes and we have no knowledge that we struck any," she said.

Earlier, Palestinian witnesses said two missiles fired from the air struck a training base used by Palestinian security forces in Gaza City. The office of President Mahmoud Abbas is nearby, although he was not there at the time.

"There is no justification for these operations. We do not understand them," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "We have appealed to the United Nations, Russia, the EU (European Union) and our Arab brothers, telling them that these actions will severely complicate civil life."

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, also commenting on the air strike, said: "The continuation of aggression will only bring more destruction and death on the enemy."

Militants regularly fire rockets from Gaza, which Israel withdrew from last year after 38 years of occupation. But the makeshift missiles rarely cause casualties nor are they launched from Gaza City because they do not have sufficient range.

COALITION TAKING SHAPE

Olmert had vowed an "iron" response to Palestinian militant attacks in the lead up to Israel's March 28 elections.

With Labor leader Amir Peretz at his side on Tuesday, he said he wanted to form a government soon. Formal coalition talks are expected to begin when President Moshe Katsav gives his approval, possibly as soon as Wednesday.

Kadima won the most seats, but fewer than expected, on its plans to lay down Israel's final borders with or without Palestinian agreement. It secured 29 seats in the 120-member parliament. Labor came second with 19.

Once endorsed by Katsav, Olmert would have 42 days to form a government. Several smaller parties are expected to join.

Olmert's plan is to trace a border along a barrier Israel is building in the West Bank, where 240,000 Israelis live among 2.4 million Palestinians. Israel would keep major settlement blocs.

Palestinians condemn such a move, saying it would annex land and deny them the viable state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Seeking to break from attempts by Israel and the United States to isolate the new Palestinian government, Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar announced plans on Tuesday to visit China and other Asian countries next month.

Zahar, a senior Hamas figure, was speaking after meeting a senior Chinese diplomat in Gaza. He did not say which other countries in Asia he planned to visit.

Israel regards Hamas, which advocates its destruction, as a terrorist organization.

(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem)

Source: REUTERS

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