Israeli aircraft attack Palestinian Foreign Ministry

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike destroyed the office
of Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar on Thursday in
an attack that signaled Israel would pursue its Gaza offensive
while fighting along a second front in Lebanon.

No one was hurt in the night-time raid on the Foreign
Ministry building in Gaza City, Palestinian security officials
said.

Israel killed at least 24 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on
Wednesday, including nine members of one family in an air
strike that destroyed a house where the army said senior Hamas
commanders were meeting.

“This is state terrorism against the Palestinian people,”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Taher al-Nunu said about the latest
attack.

An Israeli military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv confirmed the
air strike and said the ministry was used by the governing
Hamas group to further the movement’s activities.

Hamas, an Islamist militant organization, is dedicated to
Israel’s destruction.

Witnesses said the attack set off a fire in the Foreign
Ministry and destroyed Zahar’s office. Zahar is a senior Hamas
leader.

The air strike was part of an offensive Israel launched in
the Gaza Strip two weeks ago after militants operating from the
territory, which Israeli troops and settlers quit last year,
abucted a soldier in a raid into the Jewish state.

Wednesday’s death toll, which rose to 24 after a wounded
Palestinian died in hospital, included at least 14 civilians.

It was the highest number of Palestinians killed in a
single day since Israeli armor and infantry moved into the Gaza
Strip on June 28 to force militants to free the soldier and
halt cross-border rocket fire.

Israel also went on the offensive on Wednesday on its
border with Lebanon, where Hizbollah guerrillas captured two
soldiers and killed eight other troops.

Dozens of Israeli air strikes hit a dozen bridges and
suspected Hizbollah posts, killing two Lebanese civilians and a
Hizbollah fighter as well as disrupting fixed-line
communications between Beirut and south Lebanon.

Bombardment by land and sea added devastation to south
Lebanon’s road network. The Israeli army pulled out of the area
in 2000, 22 years after it moved in to fight Palestinian
guerrillas who controlled a border strip.

A statement issued by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s cabinet
after an emergency meeting on Wednesday night said that Israel
held the Lebanese government responsible for the attacks and
for the safe return of the seized soldiers.

But it offered no details about what type of action would
be taken.