MIDDLE EAST: Israeli troops kill 14 Palestinians in clashes in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Israeli troops killed 14 Palestinians in clashes in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank on Wednesday (July 19), medics said, including four gunmen, as tanks pushed into a central Gaza refugee camp. The Gaza raid was part of a three-week-old offensive to recover a captured soldier and halt rocket fire. Clashes broke out between Israeli troops and militants in parts of central Gaza as the army pushed into the territory, killing nine Palestinians, including four militants and five civilians, in air strikes and other attacks. Three of the militants were from the governing Islamist Hamas group. Gunmen from the faction, which is sworn to destroying Israel, and two other groups captured Israeli army Corporal Gilat Shalit in a cross-border raid on June 25. Israel has killed about 110 Palestinians, nearly half of them militants, in Gaza since the abduction and has vowed to continue its offensive until the soldier is freed and militants stop firing rockets into Israel. Israel says it will not free Palestinian prisoners for Shalit, a 19-year-old tank gunner, as demanded by Hamas. About 60 Palestinians, including 10 children, were wounded in clashes in densly-populated central Gaza on Wednesday, medics said. The Gaza Strip is home to 1.4 million Palestinians. In the West Bank, Israeli troops backed by armoured vehicles surrounded a Palestinian security compound in the city of Nablus and killed five gunmen of Abbas's Fatah faction, medics said. Soldiers killed a Palestinian civilian there later in the day as troops continued an offensive against militants. The army said it was checking the report and added that troops had confronted gunmen and civilians who had thrown rockets at them. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived at the coastal city of Gaza to meet with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas at his headquarters in Gaza city, on Wednesday (July 19). The two met in light of the looming crisis in Gaza that have spilled over to Lebanon and is affecting the region and threatening to escalate as neither Israel nor Hizbollah guerillas are showing any signs of backing down. "Let me say that the situation is Gaza, the situation in Lebanon is separated and is different and they should not be mixed. The problems of Palestinians are of the Palestinians and the problems of the lebanese are the problem of the Lebanese," Solana told reporters in a clear distinction between the Gaza and the Lebanon crisis. Solana called on those who can help in reaching the release of the abducted soldiers to do so, the sooner the better, for it would help solve the situation quicker, Solana says. When asked to comment on the Israeli incursion and continued strikes on Gaza Solana said: "My comment is probably to share the same sentiment that you have, the sentiment of tragedy and the sentiment that call us to do the utmost for that to be stopped sooner the better the more rapid possible it should be stopped." Three more Palestinian was killed on Wednesday, just as Solana and Abbas were in their meeting, in a blast in central Gaza that was caused by an Israeli shelling attack, the death toll for Wednesday in Gaza and the West Bank is at 12 as Israel presses ahead with the Gaza offensive. "All what is the President is going now is to find a way to stop this military escalation. This military escalation is continuing and we have not seen any encouraging sign so far to stop this kind of escalation so we urge the quartet, we urge the world community to interfere immediately in order to stop this escalation," Abu Rudeineh, top aid to the Palestinian President told reporters. Earlier on Wednesday Olmert met Solana in Jerusalem amid an international proposal to deploy international and Lebanese forces along the Lebanese border. A U.N. delegation will suggest deploying Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon and enlarging an international force there to try to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah, diplomats said on Wednesday. The delegation proposed steps include expanding the existing UNIFIL peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, though details about the size of the force and its rules of engagement have yet to be worked out. The Lebanese army would take control of an as yet undefined security zone in the southern part of the country, which has been dominated by Hizbollah since Israel ended a 22-year occupation in 2000. But Israeli parliament members said they would press ahead with their devastating offensive on what they called HIzbollah targets in Lebanon.

ITN Source | July 20, 2006

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