Israeli troops yesterday killed four Palestinians in their
latest assault on the Gaza Strip as hard-line Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert unveiled plans to protect nearby homes from
rockets. Troops supported by helicopter gunships moved
into the southern Gaza Strip overnight, killing a civilian
and three militants from the armed wing of the Islamist
Hamas movement that has ruled the Strip since June,
medics said.
The operation was aimed at “infrastructures of
terrorist organizations,” an Israeli military
spokesman told reporters. The army completed
the operation by midafternoon and withdrew its
forces from Gaza after arresting 20 Palestinians,
army radio reported.
The latest invasion came as Olmert unveiled plans
to reinforce Israeli homes near the border with Gaza
which have come under near-daily rocket and mortar
attack in recent months.
“Fifteen schools are already completely secure,
and today we will decide on proposals which will
be brought for government approval next week and
are aimed at completing reinforcement measures,”
Olmert told a weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
He then held a special ministerial meeting to discuss
a new proposal for supplying bomb shelters to homes
near the Gaza border.
Israel has been on heightened alert in recent days
following the killing of a top commander in the Lebanese
Hezbollah militia in Damascus last week in an explosion
Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Israel celebrated the death
of Imad Mughniyeh but denied any
involvement in his death.
Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak yesterday warned
of a possible revenge attack from Hezbollah, possibly with
the help of its sponsors Syria and Iran. “Israel has no
interest in an escalation, but in view of recent events
we are preparing accordingly,” he said.
A Syrian newspaper yesterday quoted what it called a
“well-informed source” saying that a number of suspects
of Arab nationality had been arrested in connection
with Mughniyeh’s killing.
Israel is, meanwhile, pushing ahead with recently
revived peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, whose forces were routed from Gaza last summer.
Olmert and Abbas will meet for the next round of talks
tomorrow, while negotiating teams have been discussing
the thorniest issues in the decades-old conflict since last month.
In another development, Israeli forces yesterday erected
additional military checkpoints impeding the movement of
Palestinians in and out of the West Bank city of Nablus.
Palestinian sources said that the Israeli forces have re-erected
a military checkpoint near the Yitzhar junction five kilometers
south of the fixed Huwwara checkpoint at the southern
entrance of Nablus. In northern Nablus, the Israeli forces
reimposed the military checkpoint at Al-Badhan valley,
blocking all traffic out of the city, and allowing passage into
Nablus only after extensive security search.
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