GAZA CITY, April 3: Israel stepped up its operations in Palestinian territories on Thursday, killing six people in a helicopter and tank raid in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, and expelling 1,000 Palestinian men from their homes in a West Bank refugee camp.
Four of the Palestinians killed in pre-dawn operations were in the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah, where the army mounted an incursion with around 40 tanks and a number of bulldozers, sparking a firefight.
Mahmoud Shaath, 24, was killed by an Israeli tank shell while Wissam al Shaar, also 24, and Ibrahim Shaluf, 18, died when they were hit by a rocket fired from a helicopter.
Walid al-Ledawi, 19, died later from shrapnel wounds after the missile attack.
Eight other Palestinians were injured, two of whom were in a critical condition during the incursion which penetrated up to one kilometre into the camp close to the Egyptian border, Palestinian security sources said.
A tank fired two shells and soldiers also opened fire while two assault helicopters circled overhead before one of them shot a rocket towards the camp, the sources said.
Four Israeli soldiers were slightly hurt during the operation when their armoured vehicle overturned after the explosion of a remote-controlled device, Israeli military sources said.
“Our forces combed the sector and carried out searches, then demolished four abandoned houses under which tunnels could be dug to smuggle arms in from Egypt,” the Israeli army said in a statement after the operation wound up.
In the West Bank, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli troops in the town of Qalqilya, Palestinian sources said.
Jihad Mazal was killed on the doorsteps of his home as soldiers opened fire during an incursion in the northern town, they said. Several tanks and jeeps took part in the raid, during which two Palestinians were arrested.
Elsewhere, an activist with the Hamas group was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, security sources said.
Khaled Rehan, 28, a member of the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, opened fire on Israeli soldiers when they tried to arrest him at a house in Nablus, and he was killed in the return fire.
The Israeli army has since August last year demolished almost 200 houses in the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinians accused of taking part in attacks inside Israel or against Jewish settlers and soldiers in the Palestinian territories.
In the Rafah area, the demolitions have created an ever-widening no man’s land between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Also in Tulkarem’s refugee camp, the army admitted it had asked hundreds of Palestinian men aged between 15 and 45 to leave their homes on Wednesday while hundreds of troops backed by tanks searched house to house.
But many of the Palestinians who slept in mosques and schools in the nearby refugee camp of Nur al-Shams and in Tulkar town said they had been ordered out in army trucks and told they would be shot if they returned before the operation was over.—AFP
GAZA CITY, April 3: Israel stepped up its operations in Palestinian territories on Thursday, killing six people in a helicopter and tank raid in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, and expelling 1,000 Palestinian men from their homes in a West Bank refugee camp.
