Israel launches air strikes on Gaza

[Tifosi]

Israel has launched air strikes against targets in the Gaza Strip, reports say.

Palestinian witnesses reported numerous explosions in Gaza City, and several people were reported to have been injured.

The strikes came after a rocket fired from the coastal enclave by militants earlier on Friday hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean coast.

That attack caused no casualties but damaged a building and cars in the city, 12km (7 miles) north of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said he took the rocket attack on Ashkelon - which has a population of 125,000 - "very seriously".

The city's mayor said the attack was the most serious since Israel ended an offensive against the Gaza Strip in January 2009.

Israel's military has yet to comment on the reported air strikes.

Rocket fire from Gaza has reduced in the past year after Hamas - the Islamist group which controls the territory - reined in attacks, but sporadic fire from other militant groups continues.

Correspondents say such attacks are almost always ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.

One Thai farmer in Israel has been killed in the past year.

Dozens of Palestinians, some of them civilians, have been killed in attacks from Israel over the same period.

Source (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10824909)

[Tifosi]

Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed a Hamas commander and wounded 11 other people.


Warplanes fired missiles at five targets across Gaza, including Gaza City, last night for the first time since Israel's three-week offensive in the territory ended 18 months ago.


Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the territory, said the man killed was Issa Batran, 42, a commander of its military wing in central Gaza and a rocket maker. Eight of its supporters and three civilians were also injured.


The air raids came after a Palestinian rocket attack struck the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Friday, causing no casualties but damaging buildings and cars in the city.


The city's mayor said the attack was the most serious since the end of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli offensive that left around 1,400 Palestinians dead, in January last year. Renegade militant groups have fired dozens of rockets and mortars into southern Israel since then, although most of those attack have been ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.


The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, earlier said he took the rocket attack on Ashkelon, which lies seven miles north of Gaza, "very seriously". No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.


The cross-border violence has raised concerns of further escalation.


A Hamas spokesman said the group would avenge Batran's killing.


"Hamas will not be quiet over the blood of its martyrs," said Hamad al-Rakabi. "Israel is opening all the gates of fire. This blood will cascade into rage and fire."


The targets hit in last night's air strike included a military training camp in Gaza City, smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border and Batran's shack, on the outskirts of the Nusseirat refugee camp, according to Hamas security officials.



Source (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/31/israeli-air-strikes-gaza-hamas)

[Atlee]

I am passing it on, thanks.

[Widerstand]

"Hamas will not be quiet over the blood of its martyrs," said Hamad al-Rakabi. "Israel is opening all the gates of fire. This blood will cascade into rage and fire."

Are they going to provoke another war? ...

[Tifosi]

Are they going to provoke another war? ...

Well if that quote is anything to go by then I'm sure they will try but who really knows? It's just the same old cycle, some group fire some glorified firework into Israel, Israel retaliates with everything they've got and the people of Palestine come out worst off, it's sad.

[freepalestine]

Israeli airstrikes kill 1, injure 10 in Gaza
Published today (updated) 31/07/2010 19:05


maannews website(palestine)


Gaza – Ma’an – An Al-Qassam Brigades fighter was killed and ten other Gaza residents were injured in a series of Israeli airstrikes that hit targets across the Strip on Saturday morning.

The Hamas-affiliated military group announced that one of its field leaders, 41-year-old Issa Abdul-Hadi Al-Batran (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=303976), was killed by one of the strikes near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Eight others were injured in a second strike targeting the Ansar Security Compound, formerly the presidential compound in Gaza City, which caused massive damages to the buildings and nearby homes, officials said.

The compound was evacuated in two stages, with the majority of personnel taken out in early evening, and a second cohort of 150 moved from the area only 30 minutes before the early morning strike. A skeleton staff had remained in the post.

The injured were treated in the Ash-Shifa Hospital, with director of ambulance and emergency service in Gaza Muawiya Hassanein identifying all as government-employed security officers. The eight sustained moderate to critical wounds and have not been named.

A strike on the Al-Muntada area, where the Ansar compound is located, also hospitalized a young girl and an elderly man, both were evacuated to the Ash-Shifa Hospital where medics said they were being treated for moderate wounds.

A statement from International Solidarity Movement workers in Gaza said "those first at the scene described building debris scattered everywhere and burned out cars still parked on the street."

Witnesses said the incident brought back raw memories of the strikes that kicked off Israel's war on Gaza, which targeted a police graduation ceremony at the primary security headquarters in Gaza City. The first strikes totaled the government buildings, and killed more than 200 young Gaza man who were graduating from the police academy.

Air strikes, artillery fire hits north, south Gaza

Israeli fighter jets also targeted an open area in Deir Al-Balah and several smuggling tunnels in Rafah, in the central and southern areas of the Strip. No injuries were reported from the strikes.

Witnesses said sites were targeted by both air and artillery fire, saying tanks were used in the northern district.

An Israeli military statement said the strikes came in "response to Grad rocket fire," and targeted "terror infrastructure" in Gaza.

The statement said the target near Nuseriat was a weapons-manufacturing warehouse, and described the Rafah strike as targeting a weapons-smuggling tunnel.

The series of strikes, the most destructive in months, came after Israeli officials reported the launch of a Grad rocket from Gaza which landed in the city of Ashkelon. In its statement the military noted that the hit "[caused] property damage" to the city that "has suffered casualties from rocket fire in the past."

No militant group in Gaza has claimed to be behind the firing, though the military statement said the "IDF holds Hamas solely responsible for terror emanating from the Gaza Strip."

Report says military doubts Hamas fired Grad

Israel's daily news site Ynet quoted a military official as saying he did not believe Hamas was behind the launch of a Grad rocket reportedly fired from Gaza on Friday.

"Hamas still wants to maintain the status quo in the Strip," he told the news site. "It continues to grow stronger, but is deterred by the IDF and doesn't want to face a conflict."
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=303866