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freepalestine
11th November 2010, 13:55
Air raid targets southern Gaza
Published today (updated) 11/11/2010 14:17
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GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israeli warplanes bombed a residential area Thursday in the southern Gaza Strip.

Injured Palestinians were stranded at the site of the blast in the Absan village east of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Warplanes targeted two houses with four airstrikes. The homes are owned by Naji Abu Hashem and the Al-Qara family, locals said.

Tanks amassed in the area in the early afternoon as ambulances attempted to reach the scene.

A government medical official, Adham Abu Salmiyya, denied that anyone was injured in the attack.

The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said its members clashed with Israeli forces near the Kisufim gate east of Khan Younis after shooting an Israeli soldier. leading to the aerial raid.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that aerial vehicles struck a building in central Gaza "where armed militants were hiding. They were suspected of planning to fire at IDF forces and attempting to plant an explosive device earlier today."

A clash took place Wednesday in the same area, but no one was injured.

In Zikkim, an Israeli kibbutz located several hundred meters from the northernmost part of the border between Israel and Gaza, two bullets fired from Gaza slammed into an industrial area causing damage but not injuries, a police spokesman said.

"The shots were fired from the Gaza Strip and hit a building and a vehicle in Kibbutz Zikkim," Micky Rosenfeld said.

A correspondent at the scene said the bullets had hit an industrial area of the kibbutz, with one ricocheting off the pavement and into a car windscreen, and the second hitting a mattress factory.

The kibbutz security officer identified the bullets as being 0.50 caliber.

Rosenfeld said there was "no chance" the machine gun fire had originated from anywhere other than Gaza.

The Israeli army could not immediately confirm any cross-border machine gun fire.

In the Negev, an Israeli air force F-16 crashed while on a routine training flight, the military said, adding that its two-man crew were missing.

Large forces were carrying out search and rescue in the area of the Ramon Crater looking for the pilot and navigator, an army spokeswoman said.

The accident occurred on Wednesday evening, but the military censor barred publication of the news until the families of the crew had been notified, standard practice in Israel.


AFP contributed to this report.

http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333010

freepalestine
11th November 2010, 13:58
Israeli fighter jet crashes during training, crew missing
Published today (updated) 11/11/2010 13:08



JERUSALEM (AFP) -- An Israeli air force F-16 crashed in the deserts of southern Israel while on a routine training flight, the military said Thursday, adding that its two-man crew were missing.

Large forces were carrying out search and rescue in the area of the Ramon Crater looking for the pilot and navigator, an army spokeswoman said.

The fighter was a US-made F-16I, custom designed for the Israeli air force and believed capable of reaching arch-foe Iran. This was the first crash of the model.

Air force commander Ido Nehushtan has ordered an investigation into the accident and has temporarily grounded the F-16I fleet, the spokeswoman said.

The accident occurred on Wednesday evening, but the military censor barred publication of the news until the families of the crew had been notified, standard practice in Israel.





http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=332874

freepalestine
11th November 2010, 14:09
Published yesterday (updated) 11/11/2010 11:04




GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Two armed groups in the Gaza Strip launched separate attacks targeting Israeli forces who entered the enclave Wednesday morning, while soldiers shot and injured a Palestinian worker.

The armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement said its operatives planted a landmine which exploded under a military bulldozer that crossed into the southern Gaza town of Al-Qaraqa, east of Khan Younis, using the Kissufim gate.

Operatives affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's military wing, meanwhile, said their forces fired several mortar shells toward Israeli tanks near the Sreij gate north of Khan Younis.

The PFLP's Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades said the operation was "a natural response to Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people." Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades said the bombing affirmed its "right of resistance to any Israeli aggression."

Witnesses reported Israeli helicopter fire opened toward the demolished Yasser Arafat International Airport in what they said appeared to be a move to disperse workers collecting aggregates.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was unaware of helicopter activity in the region, but confirmed that two explosive devices were detonated targeting soldiers "who were performing routine activity in the southern Gaza Strip earlier today." A third explosive was detonated it in a controlled manner, she said.

There were no reports of injury or damage on either side, the official added.

"The incident is another in a chain of events proving that the area adjacent to the security fence is used by terror organizations to plant explosives and plan terror attacks against IDF soldiers often under the guise of apparently innocent farmwork," she said.

In northern Gaza, meanwhile, a Palestinian man was injured by Israeli fire while collecting scrap construction materials near the Erez crossing. Medical services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said a 28-year-old identified only by his initials YG was lightly injured and transferred to the Kamal Udwan Hospital for treatment.

The military spokeswoman responded: "The area adjacent to the security fence is a combat zone used by terrorist organizations to execute attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers and to plan kidnapping attacks. For this reason, the IDF will not allow anyone to be present in it."

She added: "During this morning's incident, soldiers fired warning shots in the air a number of times in an attempt to drive the suspects away from the fence. When the suspects failed to consent, the forces fired toward the suspects' lower bodies, and identified hitting one of the suspects."

Workers have been targeted nearly every day by Israeli soldiers patrolling the buffer zone, an area of Palestinian territory along Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.

As Israel bans concrete and crushed stone for construction, young men often go to evacuated settlements to collect gravel from buildings that Israeli forces demolished before the unilateral withdrawal of settlers and internal occupation forces in 2005.

A 19-year-old worker died of asphyxiation Sunday after he fell in a ditch and was buried under rubble as he collected stone aggregates in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Another teenager was injured Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire at a group of workers collecting rubble near an evacuated Israeli settlement in northern Gaza.

Abu Salmiya, the medical spokesman, said 66 people have been injured collecting scrap supplies in the area since 2009.
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=332685