06 October 2004	Wednesday	20 Shaban 1425

JABALIYA, Oct 5: A leading Palestinian militant leader was killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City on Tuesday as Israeli troops pressed a deadly week-old incursion into the northern Gaza Strip.

The dead commander was identified as Bashir al-Dibsh, 40, Gaza leader of the Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad. Fellow militant Dharif al-Ariir was also killed in the attack on their vehicle just outside a Gaza refugee camp, medics said. A third person was wounded.

The violence raised to 80 the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since Israeli armour poured into the north of the territory on Sep 28. In the Jabaliya refugee camp, epicentre of the fierce fighting sparked by the incursion, a Palestinian gunman was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

Further south, Israeli troops shot dead a 13-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl from an observation tower in the town of Rafah, on the Israeli-controlled border with the Gaza Strip.

Dr Ali Musa, head of Rafah hospital, said the body of Eman al-Hams was riddled with 20 bullets, including five to the head. But Israeli military sources insisted troops had fired at the girl after she crossed into a restricted zone and was spotted planting "what seemed to be an explosive charge".

In northern Gaza, troops pressed their mission to carve out a buffer zone inside the territory. -AFP