At least eight killed, 21 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza: sources
26/7/2006 17:14
At least eight Palestinians were killed and 21 wounded today in a series
of Israeli airstrikes and tanks shelling on north-east Gaza City, medics,
eyewitnesses and security sources reported.
Joma'a al-Saqqa, public relation
officer at the Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City said that the death toll by Israeli
strikes on Gaza since early predawn Wednesday hit to eight and 21
injured.
Palestinian security sources said that dozens of Israeli army tanks,
bulldozers, armored vehicles and personnel carries rolled into al-Sha'f
neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City amid intensive gunfire.
Since predawn,
the Israeli aircrafts had carried out four separate airstrikes on Palestinian
militants who tried to confront the Israeli armored vehicles' thrust into the
area, they said.
Eyewitnesses said that one Israeli army tank fired one tank
shells at the neighborhood during the armored vehicles thrust into the
neighborhood, killing and wounding more than 10 Palestinians, including
militants and civilians.
Al-Saqqa from the Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City said
that six Palestinians were killed, including a 3-year-old girl, and five
wounded, three are in critical conditions.
Meanwhile, one Palestinian was
killed and eight were injured in Israeli air strikes on northern and eastern
Gaza City, adding that some of those injured are civilians and in serious
conditions, he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli aircraft targeted by
missiles the training camp of the Hamas-led Palestinian Interior Ministry's
security auxiliary force in northern Gaza City, where eight people were injured,
according to him.
He said that one of those wounded in the airstrike on the
training camp died of his wounds later at the hospital.
The Israeli ground
incursion into the area is part of an ongoing Israeli military large-scale
offensive on the Gaza Strip since June 25 when an Israeli soldier was abducted
by militants led by Hamas armed wing in the Gaza Strip.
Israel said the aim
of the operation is to rein on Palestinian militants to force them to release
the captive soldier and stop launching homemade rockets from the area at
southern Israel.
Xinhua
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