• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Israeli forces, Gaza gunmen in fierce clash

Posted on: Thursday, 6 July 2006, 03:45 CDT

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza (Reuters) - Fierce fighting erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen in northern Gaza on Thursday after Israel sent tanks and armored vehicles into the area to quell militant rocket fire.

Tanks and helicopter gunships fired at militant positions inside the town of Beit Lahiya. Gunmen from various factions responded with automatic weapons. Ambulances raced to the scene, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israeli forces seized three former Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip overnight, expanding an offensive that began last week with the main goal of bringing home a captured soldier.

The incursion, ordered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, carved out a buffer zone after gunmen from the governing Hamas movement fired rockets into a major Israeli city for the first time.

Beit Lahiya lies near the three ruined settlements.

As the clash broke out, tanks moved inside the western part of the town, where they confronted gunmen from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and also the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, Reuters witnesses said.

The streets were largely deserted as residents stayed home.

Backed by fire from helicopter gunships, the tanks earlier pushed into the ruins of three of the 21 Jewish settlements evacuated when Israel left Gaza last year after 38 years of occupation. One Hamas militant was killed in an air strike.

"Our presence there doesn't mean that we intend to remain in the Gaza Strip. We simply want to prevent firing at our towns," National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of Olmert's security cabinet, told Israeli Army Radio.

The military said Israeli forces would stay in the area, several kilometers inside northern Gaza, "until the completion of their mission" and called on Palestinian civilians to stay clear of combat zones.

Rockets are often fired from the former settlements.

Israeli political sources said Olmert had effectively decided to carve out a buffer zone to halt the rocket attacks. But the prime minister's office said the offensive would not amount to re-occupying parts of the strip long-term.

Hamas rockets hit Ashkelon, a city of 115,000, on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was the furthest point hit by the missiles, which cause few casualties but spread panic.

The stepped-up incursion in northern Gaza has intensified pressure on the Hamas-led government, already facing Israeli threats over the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25. Hamas gunmen were among those who seized him.

"GAZA SWAMP"

"We won't sink in the Gaza swamp, but will enter any necessary area to carry out our missions," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said on Wednesday.

The Gaza violence has dampened enthusiasm for Olmert's plan to give up some isolated settlements in the occupied West Bank, while strengthening the main blocs there. Olmert's opponents say the lesson from Gaza is that giving up land may not bring peace.

Palestinians seek at least the West Bank and Gaza, captured in a 1967 war, for a state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital. Hamas is sworn to destroy Israel.

A total of 11 Palestinians, almost all of them militants, have been killed since the offensive began. Israel has also detained dozens of Hamas officials, applying pressure to the government already under an international aid embargo.

Hamas accuses Israel of trying to topple its elected administration, an outcome that would please Israeli leaders.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Israelis and Palestinians on Wednesday to "step back from the brink," warning that their escalating confrontation could soon turn explosive.

Israel has hinted it could assassinate leaders of Hamas unless Shalit was freed. There has been little information on Shalit since he was captured, but Israel has said it believes he is still alive.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category