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3 Israeli soldiers, 4 militants killed in Gaza raids

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Written by News Editor

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Three Israeli soldiers and four Hamas militants were killed on Wednesday as troops backed by assault helicopters stormed into the Gaza Strip and battled heavily armed Palestinians. The clashes marked the second eruption of violence in a week in the Hamas-led Palestinian territory. "Three soldiers were killed and three were wounded in an exchange of fire" with gunmen who had approached the security fence between Israel and Gaza near the Nahal Oz crossing and fuel terminal, an army spokeswoman said. Hamas claimed it killed the soldiers in a "sophisticated ambush." Four activists of the Islamist movement were killed in the same area, Palestinian medics said. The militants of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, were killed by members of an Israeli unit backed by helicopters. Six other Brigades members were captured and taken back to Israel by the soldiers at dawn, the sources said. The latest casualties bring to 396 the number of people killed, most of them Gaza militants, since Israel and the Palestinians re-launched formal peace talks at a U.S. conference in November, according to an AFP count. Wednesday's clashes came exactly one week after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli civilians who worked at the Nahal Oz terminal, which supplies all of Gaza's fuel. Seven Palestinians were killed in the direct aftermath of the daring attack. Top Fuel shortage Israel halted all fuel deliveries to Gaza after the April 9 attack, but announced they would resume supplies to the Gaza electricity plant on Wednesday. The United Nations said the announcement fell well short of what is needed in the impoverished, overpopulated territory, which is under a crippling Israeli embargo. "The current absence of fuel at petrol stations has meant that normal transportation has ceased, many students have been unable to get to school and many health professionals have been unable to get to hospitals and clinics," U.N. agencies working in the occupied Palestinian territories said in a joint statement on Tuesday. "There have been difficulties transporting essential items such as food throughout Gaza," the statement said. The U.N. agencies said that even before the attack on Nahal Oz, the amount of fuel delivered by Israel to Gaza was "inadequate to fulfill Gaza's requirements." The territory was receiving just 3.8 million liters of diesel and 340,000 liters of benzene, compared with more than 8.8 million liters and 1.7 million liters respectively a year previously. Israel has cut all but very limited deliveries of essential supplies to Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory in June in what it says is an attempt to pressure the Islamist movement to stop militants firing rockets into the Jewish state. As the fighting was going on, Hamas announced that two of its top leaders would meet former Jimmy Carter in Cairo later on Wednesday after Israel refused to allow the former U.S. president to travel to Gaza. Hamas said Carter would meet Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam, considered hardline leaders who planned the violent takeover of Gaza from forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Carter is also expected to meet exiled Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal in Damascus over the weekend, despite strong opposition from Israel and the U.S. administration. The United States, Israel and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization.

 

 

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