Casualties in big Palestinian attack on Israeli post

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian militants including Hamas
gunmen launched a major raid on an Israeli army post near the
Gaza Strip border on Sunday in an attack that left casualties
on both sides, Israeli media and other sources said.

Israeli radio stations said there were several Israeli
casualties in the attack, in which militants fired rockets and
automatic weapons. Hamas, which runs the Palestinian
government, said it killed several Israelis. The army had no
immediate comment.

At least three militants were killed in the raid near the
Kerem Shalom border crossing, an Israeli rescue service and
Palestinian sources said.

The Israeli army said that one of its positions near Kerem
Shalom, around the southern part of Gaza, had been hit by an
anti-tank missile. The army declined to provide additional
details.

The clash was still going on one hour after militants
launched the dawn raid.

“Apparently an anti-tank missile hit a tank. The clash is
still in progress,” an army spokeswoman said.

The Hamas armed wing said it helped carry out the raid,
which also involved the People’s Resistance Committees (PRC),
an umbrella group of militants and the Islamic Army.

“There was an operation to land fighters behind the Kerem
Shalom crossing. There is a large number of fatalities and
wounded among the enemy,” said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the
Hamas armed wing.

The militants said the operation was in response to the
Israeli assassination this month of PRC leader Jamal Abu
Samhadana and air strikes aimed at militants firing homemade
rockets from Gaza that have also killed civilians.

Hamas ended a 16-month-old truce with Israel on June 9
after seven members of one Palestinian family were killed on a
Gaza beach during a day of heavy Israeli shelling. Hamas has
blamed Israel for those deaths. Israel has denied
responsibility.

The militant Islamic group Hamas took over the Palestinian
government in March after winning parliamentary elections in
January.

Israel completed a withdrawal of Jewish settlers and
soldiers from Gaza in September last year after 38 years of
occupation. No Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since
then.

(Additional reporting by Megan Goldin in Jerusalem)