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Israel Fires Missiles at Gaza House

Posted on: Sunday, 25 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli helicopters fired two missiles Sunday at a house in a crowded residential district of Gaza City that has been the scene of heavy fighting.

Palestinian security officials said the two-story house was empty at the time. Two people, apparently bystanders, were taken to a hospital with light wounds and two others were treated at the scene.

Family members evacuated children by handing them to rescue workers from the second floor of a damaged adjacent house. Firefighters battled flames from the targeted building.

The strike came a few hours before thousands of Israelis were to begin a massive demonstration against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw the military from Gaza and dismantle the 21 settlements in the Palestinian territory.

Organizers said the pro-settlement demonstrators will hold hands and form a 55-mile human chain stretching from the Nissanit settlement to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest shrine. They said some 150,000 people had signed up to participate.

In the airstrike, Israeli security officials said the helicopters were targeting a Palestinian militant who was not home at the time. It was not clear which militant the army hoped to hit, the officials said.

It was the second Israeli attack in recent days in the Zeitoun neighborhood. Last Thursday, a missile killed two members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

The target was a man Israelis said was involved in the desecration of Israeli soldiers killed last May, following one of the biggest operations in Gaza City in years.

Israel has staged at least three other helicopter attacks in the Gaza Strip in the last week.

Also Sunday, Israeli troops expanded an operation near Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, effectively taking over an entire town in an effort to prevent the firing of rockets on nearby Israeli areas.

Armored bulldozers cleared roads leading from farmland areas of Beit Hanoun into the center of town and were followed by tanks that parked near the municipality, Palestinian witnesses said.

As troops moved in, attack helicopters fired machine guns in the area as cover. Soldiers took over rooftops in tall buildings in the town and positioned snipers on them, the witnesses said.

An army spokesman described it as a routine operation to stop militants from firing rockets across the border into Israel.

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