GAZA: Israeli troops kill 12-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza

Israeli troops killed a 12-year-old Palestinian girl in northern Gaza Strip on Saturday (November 4) in Israel's biggest assault on the territory in months. The girl was shot in the head by a sniper who was aiming at an armed gunman, an Israeli army spokesman said. Also on Saturday, Israeli forces killed six other Palestinians in Gaza - including four militants - in air strikes and clashes, rescue workers said, and the army briefly eased its grip on a town at the centre of a major offensive. One of the gunmen was killed in battles with Israeli soldiers backed by tanks near the northern town of Beit Hanoun, witnesses said. Militants fired anti-tank rockets at troops, they added. One soldier was seriously wounded, the army said. As darkness fell on Saturday, troops began house to house searches for militants, local residents said. The violence came a day after Israel killed 17 people, about half of them civilians, including two women acting as human shields between troops and gunmen hiding in a mosque in Beit Hanoun. Israel's army said it only fired at armed Palestinians. Israel says the operation, one of the biggest since the army and Jewish settlers pulled out of Gaza last year after 38 years of occupation, aims to halt rocket fire at the Jewish state. The violence has scuttled hopes of any resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, already a remote prospect since the Hamas militant group took power in March following elections. Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction. Israeli forces have killed some 44 people in the four-day assault, the Palestinian health ministry said. Beit Hanoun, home to 30,000 Palestinians, has been under an effective curfew since troops moved in, residents say. On Saturday, soldiers using loudspeakers told residents that women had two hours to go out and buy food, witnesses said. An Israeli army spokesman said troops had not seized Beit Hanoun. The Beit Hanoun operation is part of a broader offensive launched in late June following the abduction of an Israeli soldier by militants in a cross-border raid from Gaza. Since the start of that offensive more than 300 Palestinians have been killed, half of them civilians according to hospital officials and residents. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate who favours peace negotiations with Israel, condemned the killings and demanded immediate U.N. intervention in the conflict. Palestinian militants have fired around 300 homemade missiles at Israel this year from Gaza, Israel says. They are rarely deadly and mostly cause light injury, damage to property and panic.

ITN Source | November 5, 2006

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