Khan Younis - At least five Palestinian citizens, including a young boy, were killed Thursday and seven others were wounded, two critically, in pre-dawn Israeli land and aerial shelling of Palestinian homes and gatherings in the Faraheen area in Khan Younis district.
Palestinian security sources affirmed that Israeli warplanes unleashed at least two of their air-to-surface missiles at a group of Palestinian citizens gathering in the area and directly hit them.
Three of the victims, including the 13-year-old boy, were hit with IOF bullets in the head and found lifeless bodies in one of the areas.
Before daybreak, according to the sources, large numbers of IOF troops backed by military vehicles and special units of the IOF undercover elements stormed the area under intensive machinegun fire and aerial cover of the Israeli Apache copters.
Vast agricultural lands in the area were bulldozed by IOF bulldozers, while IOF special units ransacked a number of Palestinian homes and turned them into barracks under the watching eyes of the terrified Palestinian children and women.
The Qassam Brigades, armed wing of Hamas, declared that three of its fighters were martyred with Israeli missiles while blocking the advancing IOF troops.
The three were identified as Salah Rashad Kudaih, 23, Nael Fauzi Kudaih, 25, and Abdul Rahman Abdullah Kudaih, 23.
In a statement it issued to mourn its martyrs Thursday, the Qassam Brigades vowed to avenge the killing of its fighters, and to retaliate to the IOF troops' brutality in the Faraheen area.
Not waiting for long to carry out its pledges, the Brigades fired two locally-made anti-tank Al-Yassin projectiles at a Palestinian house occupied by Israeli soldiers after forcing its inhabitants out of it at gunpoint.
A hand grenade was also hurled by the Brigades fighters at that same house, the armed wing said, adding that shelling the IOF troops in the house was the initial retaliation to the bloody massacre in Faraheen area.
Proving that it has more in its sack to hit the IOF troops, the Brigades later announced in a military communiqué it issued Thursday morning and a copy of which was faxed to the PIC that its fighters succeeded in rocking the nearby Israeli settlement of Sderot with six home-made Qassam missiles.
The Brigades further declared that its fighters destroyed with Al-Yassin anti-tank projectile an Israeli tank trying to advance in the Faraheen area, asserting that resistance is the only option before Palestinian people to get rid of the Israeli occupation of their country.
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