Special report: Israel launches Gaza assault
JERUSALEM, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday that the IDF was not to blame for Saturday's explosion in a house in Gaza City that killed three members of a family, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Citing an initial investigation into the incident, the IDF confessed on Sunday that it did launch an air strike in the area, but claimed that the raid was targeting a group of armed gunmen.
Palestinians earlier blamed an IDF artillery shell for the blast in a house of a family, a charge rejected by IDF, which claimed that its artillery did not shell the area.
A huge blast occurred in a house in Gaza City on Saturday evening, killing three members of a family and wounding four.
Medics at Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed that a 42-year-old mother, her 20-year-old son and six-year-old daughter were killed by splinters of an Israeli tank shell.
Palestinian security sources said that an Israeli tank stationed in eastern Gaza City fired several shells at the city's neighborhood of Sheja'eya and one of the shells hit a house in the neighborhood. Enditem
Related: 6 Palestinians killed in Gaza Strip
GAZA, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian death toll on Saturday rose to six during Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.
Jom'aa al-Saqqa, chief of emergency in Gaza City's Shiffa hospital, said that three were shot dead in fresh clashes with Israeli troops in eastern Gaza while the other three died of their wounds sustained in northern Gaza in the last two days.
He said that shortly after Israeli tanks and armored vehicles withdrew on Saturday morning from areas they seized in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, Palestinian medics found a 19-year-old Palestinian dead.
He said that the young man was physically disable and died of his wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike on Friday.
Israeli army tanks intruded into the Shajaiyeh neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City on Saturday morning. About seven Palestinians were killed on Friday and about 20 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed on Thursday, the most bloody single day since Israel launched massive ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to rescue an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants and halt rocket fired from Gaza. Enditem
Israel rejects Palestinian PM's ceasefire proposal
Black smoke is seen during an Israeli bombardment over the town of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip July 8, 2006. (Xinhua/AFP Photo) |
JERUSALEM, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Israel on Saturday rejected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya's call for ceasefire between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants, local media reported.
An official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said that Israeli government would not agree to any truce until the Palestinian militant groups free kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit and stop firing homemade rockets at Israeli cities.
As Israel intensified its offensive in the Gaza Strip, Haneya on Saturday called on Palestinian militants and Israel to halt violence in Gaza after 11 days of Summer Rain military operation left nearly 40 Palestinian militants dead.
"In order to get out of the current crisis, it is necessary that all parties restore calm on the basis of mutually stopping all military operations," a statement issued by Haneya's office in Gaza said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) expanded its operation in Gaza on Saturday morning, with tanks advancing to within 500 meters of Gaza City.
Some 15 tanks entered the Strip through the Karni border crossing in what the army said was a search for tunnels used by militants.
Late Saturday afternoon, IDF troops withdrew from positions overlooking the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun as well as the Dahaniyeh airport in the southern Gaza Strip. Enditem
