GAZA/JERUSALEM: Hamas says Israeli soldier and three Palestinian gunmen are killed in Gaza clashes

Violence escalates in the Gaza Strip, as an Israeli soldier and three Palestinian militants are killed in fierce fighting, according to the Israeli army, Hamas, and Gaza hospital officials. Three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in fierce clashes in the Gaza Strip on Monday (October 29), the ruling Hamas group, Gaza hospital officials, and the Israeli army said. The Israeli army said its forces were operating in Khan Younis and Beit Hanoun, towns in south and north Gaza, from where Palestinian militants often launch rockets into Israel. The army announced that one soldier was killed during the military operations. Hamas said its fighters fired an anti-tank rocket at Israeli soldiers near Beit Hanoun, killing one and wounding at least one more. Another Israeli soldier was killed in Gaza two weeks ago. Israeli tanks and helicopters fired on Beit Hanoun, killing a Palestinian gunman and a civilian, Hamas and hospital officials said. At least 12 other Palestinians were wounded. Hamas said one of its gunmen was killed in a clash with Israeli troops in Khan Younis. The Israeli army said forces in the town shot two gunmen but had no word on their condition. Israel quit Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation but has regularly staged commando raids and air strikes against suspected militant bases and rocket crews. Hamas, an Islamist group that seized control of Gaza in a June civil war with secular rivals, has deployed squads of gunmen in frontier areas in hope of ambushing Israeli forces. In Jerusalem Israel's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee convened a hearing and discussed the situation in Gaza. Israeli Knesset member Yuval Steinitz said militants in Gaza are receiving aid from outside the coastal strip to upgrade their abilities to wage war. "Iran, with some Egyptian cooperation, is helping the Palestinians to build a new Hezbollah in Gaza in the centre of the south of Israel," Steinitz said. The European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner held meetings with Israeli officials and Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Monday. She said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was deteriorating, but acknowledged that rockets were continuing to be fired from Gaza by militants into Israel. "Indeed the humanitarian conditions are now being worse and worse. I think collective punishment is never a solution. The solution would rather be, and I do hope now in the uprun to Annapolis that three will be new political context, but of course on the other hand we also see the distress that is being caused by the Qassam rockets," Ferrero-Waldner said during a meeting with Peres. Peres said the Israeli government doesn't believe in collective punishment either and called on Palestinians to cease firing rockets at Israel if they wanted peace. "I think the government itself emphasises that we don't want any collective punishment or punish the innocent people. But basically, if it's really difficult for the people in Gaza, let them stop shooting and finish. I mean it is very strange, they fire all the time rockets. They attack. They kill, and then they say why are they doing it. Let them stop it and again, be free," Peres said. Also on Monday, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an Israeli soldier was wounded when his patrol was attacked by Palestinian gunmen, the army said. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small militant group, claimed responsibility for the ambush.

ITN Source | October 29, 2007

Tags:. .regularly. .rather. .committee. .wounding. .strange