GAZA: 3 Palestinians dead and at least 4 wounded in clashes with Israeli forces

Two Palestinians were killed during an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen on Saturday (September 2), while a third Palestinian was shot dead by troops near a Gaza border crossing, the army and witnesses said. In the first incident, witnesses said Israeli troops backed by helicopters entered the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun and engaged in heavy clashes with Palestinian gunmen there. Residents said the operation targeted the house of a member of Hamas. Two Palestinians, a father and son, were killed and at least four others wounded, medics said. An Israeli army spokesman said initial reports suggested that two gunmen opened fire on Israeli troops from the building, prompting the troops to return fire, killing them both. Several Hamas activists were detained and the house was demolished by an army bulldozer, residents said. At the same time, Israeli air strikes in a nearby part of Beit Hanoun wounded three Palestinians, two of them children, with shrapnel, medics said. In the second incident, the Israeli army confirmed it had shot and killed a man as he approached the Kisufim border crossing in central Gaza, but provided no other details about the circumstances. Israel began an offensive in Gaza in late June, after gunmen abducted an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid. The eight-week offensive is designed to recover the captured soldier and also to prevent Palestinian militants from firing makeshift rockets from northern Gaza into Israel. Israel has killed more than 200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, during the latest Gaza offensive. It pulled troops and settlers out of the territory in August last year after 38 years of occupation.

ITN Source | September 2, 2006

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