GAZA: Palestinian teenager and militant killed as Israel continues raid on northern Gaza Strip

Israel on Monday (November 6) continued to raid northern Gaza Strip, killing three Palestinians in separate incidents, Palestinians reported. An Israeli aircraft fired a missile near a school bus in the town of Beit Lahiya, killing a 16-year-old Palestinian and wounding four other people, witnesses and hospital officials said. An Israeli military spokesman said the air strike targeted Palestinians who had come to retrieve launchers used to fire rockets into the Jewish state. Witnesses to the air attack in Beit Lahiya said the missile landed near a school bus, killing the teenage boy. Among the wounded was a teacher, who was in a critical condition. The identities of the other casualties were not immediately known. Palestinians who gathered on site of attack collected shrapnel while frightened children were rushed by a teacher into a vehicle to seek cover. Later, hundreds of men carried the body of the youth through the town's streets and chanting slogans during the funeral procession. Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh urged western countries and the Arab world to help the Palestinians put an end to the Israeli offensive. "We are demanding to create an international investigation committee on the war crimes, that have happened against unarmed Palestinian people. We are calling the Arab and Muslim nations to take responsibility and to protect the Palestinian nation, and to stop this continued aggression," Haniyeh said at the beginning of a cabinet meeting in Gaza. At least 52 Palestinians, more than half of them gunmen, and an Israeli soldier have been killed in six days of fighting. Israeli forces have been operating in Beit Lahiya and nearby Beit Hanoun since last week in a bid to beat back Palestinian rocket crews and gunmen. It is part of a wider offensive launched in late June after militants, including members of the governing Hamas movement, abducted an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid from Gaza. Since the start of the overall offensive in late June in Gaza, 320 Palestinians have been killed, around half of them civilians. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.

ITN Source | November 6, 2006

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