Israel Enters Palestinian Areas, Destroys Homes

01/04/2001| IslamWeb

GAZA (Islamweb & Agencies) - Palestinian Resistance men battled Israeli occupation. Four Palestinians were wounded. Israeli occupation troops meanwhile demolished Palestinian homes in a fresh flare-up of intifadha confrontations in the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, witnesses and hospital officials said.Palestinian witnesses and security officials said Israeli bulldozers and tanks entered a Palestinian refugee camp in Rafah near the Gaza-Egypt border in one of the fiercer battles at the flashpoint since a U.S.-mediated cease-fire took effect in June.
The battle followed a Palestinian bombing mission in Gaza on Monday in which the bomber alone was killed, and mortar bomb fire on two Jewish settlements in the strip which caused no injuries. (Read photo caption below).
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli occupation troops destroyed as many as five homes and Resistance men, including members of the Palestinian Authority's National Security Forces, opened fire on the troops.
The Palestinian security chief in Gaza, Major-General Abdel-Razek Al-Majaydeh, said Israel had launched ``a savage attack against a Palestinian refugee camp under full Palestinian control in a new campaign to destroy more houses and to terrorize innocent residents.''
Al-Majaydeh commands the National Security Forces.
GAZA BATTLE FOLLOWS NEW DEATHS
Tensions in the volatile Gaza Strip intensified over the weekend after the killing of 11-year-old Khalil Mughrabi by Israeli troops on Saturday. The militant Islamic group Hamas has vowed to send 10 bombers against Israel in revenge.
In the West Bank, a roadside bomb explosion killed a 22-year-old Israeli army captain late on Sunday night as his jeep passed near the flashpoint city of Hebron (Al-Khalil). The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Israeli occupation soldiers examine the wreck of a car which exploded near the Kissufim checkpoint into the Gaza Strip July 9, 2001. A Palestinian in a bombing mission blew up in his van near an Israeli checkpoint in Gaza, the first of several 'human bombs' that Islamic militants had vowed would avenge the killing of a 11-year-old Palestinian boy. (Danny Salomon/Reuters)