31/07/2010 A series of Israeli air strikes bombed the Gaza Strip Friday night killing one Palestinian and injured 8 others, Palestinian witnesses reported.
Al-Jazeera reported that among the targets bombed were Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and the Ansar compound, both in Gaza City, as well as targets in Rafah and Deir al-Balah.
The Hamas military group announced that one of its field leaders, 40-year-old Issa Abdul-Hadi Al-Batran, was martyred by one of the strikes near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, the resistance movement vowed revenge for the Israeli aggression.
The military wing of Hamas said in a statement, "These new Zionist crimes will not pass without answer."
In a statement on Saturday, the military wing of Hamas identified the man as Issa Al-Batran, 40, and said he was a senior field commander. "These new Zionist crimes will not pass without answer," the statement said.
Eight others were injured in a second strike targeting the Ansar Security Compound, formerly the presidential compound in Gaza City, which caused massive damages to the buildings and nearby homes, officials said.
Palestinian sources described the strikes on Gaza as the heaviest since Israel's two-week aggression against the Strip a year and a half ago which killed more than 1400 Palestinians, including 420 children and injured over 5300 others.
The Israeli occupation army confirmed the air-strike, and claimed it targeted a Hamas-linked site in the northern Gaza Strip, a weapons-manufacturing warehouse in the central Gaza Strip and a weapons-smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip.
A strike on the Al-Muntada area injured a young girl and an elderly man, both were evacuated to the Ash-Shifa Hospital where medics said they were being treated for moderate wounds.
Witnesses said sites were targeted by both air and artillery fire, saying tanks were used in the northern district.
Earlier Friday, Israel lodged a complaint to the United Nations about rocket and mortar attacks launched from the Gaza Strip into southern occupied territories.
"These recent attacks on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip seriously violate international law and should be adequately addressed and condemned by the international community," Israel's ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev wrote in a letter to UN chief Ban ki-Moon. "In response to the escalating threat of terrorism, Israel will exercise its right of self-defense and will continue to take all necessary measures to protect its citizens."
A rocket fired from Gaza on Friday slammed into southern of Ashkelon, causing no casualties but some damage.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it "holds Hamas solely responsible for terror emanating from the Gaza Strip."
Hamas: Arabs' approval of talks with Israel yielded military action against Gaza
[ 31/07/2010 - 02:26 PM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement said that the Israeli military escalation which started Friday night was a natural result of the Arab decision to give Mahmoud Abbas a green light for his peace talks with Israelis.
"This escalation is intentional in terms of timing; it is a reaction to the Arab decision and aimed at disturbing the calm and stability in the Gaza Strip and create a state of confusion," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri underlined in a statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC) on Saturday.
Spokesman Abu Zuhri denied Israeli allegations about the landing of a missile fired from Gaza in Israel, affirming that Israel uses such pretexts to escalate its aggression on Gaza.
Israel last night carried out a number of air raids on Gaza areas that resulted in the death of a prominent leader of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the injury of 10 other Palestinians.
The Qassam Brigades, for its part, vowed to avenge its leader Issa Batran and warned Israel that its crime would not go unpunished.
A statement issued by the Brigades noted that Batran's wife and five kids were already killed during the last Israeli war on Gaza.
Qassam leader killed, 10 injuries during several air raids on Gaza areas
[ 31/07/2010 - 08:04 AM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- A senior leader of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was killed and 10 other Palestinians were wounded during Israeli aerial raids on different areas in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The Qassam Brigades stated that one of its prominent leaders called Issa Batran, 40, was killed at dawn Saturday when Israeli warplanes bombed an area in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza.
It said that Batran joined his wife and five children who were killed in a deadly raid on his house during the last Israeli war on Gaza.
Israel escalated its military actions against Gaza on Friday evening and carried out four air raids on Gaza city, the central province and Rafah tunnels.
Director of the health ministry's emergency unit Muawiya Hassanein told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that the medical crews evacuated eight security men and two civilians, a children and an aged man after a raid on the headquarters of Palestinian security forces, west of Gaza city.
This military aggression on Gaza took place after Abbas managed to receive a green light from Arab states for his direct negotiations with Israelis, while most of the Palestinian factions reject any peace talks with Israel.
For his part, Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), strongly denounced the Arab League for giving Abbas the go-ahead to restart his direct talks with Israelis, warning that the next stage could witness a widespread Israeli escalation.
Dr. Bahar said in a press statement on Friday that the Arab League would not have dared to take such a decision without the full consent of Abbas's authority.
He pointed out that the Arab League always reflects the defeatist positions of the Arab regimes which joined the Zio-American axis and legalized all forms of political degradation in order to protect their existence.
The lawmaker stressed the need for confronting the policies pursued by Abbas's authority which desecrated all national rights, constants and values.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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