3 Palestinians killed, including a woman and her son, in Israeli airstrike on a Beit Lahiya car, 25 kidnapped in Tulkarem

3 dead in new Israeli airstrike on car in Beit Lahiya

Date: 17 / 01 / 2008 Time: 20:37

Gaza – Ma'an –

Three people were killed, including a woman and her son and several others were injured in a fresh Israeli raid, targeting a civilian car in Beit Lahiyah, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Thursday.

Mu'awiya Hassanain, director of ambulance and emergency services in the Palestinian health ministry told Ma'an that three dead bodies were taken to the Kamal Udwan Hospital, along with four people who are seriously injured.

Medical sources told Ma'an that the car was carrying members of the Islamic Jihad movement, killing two of them. The blast also hit a horse-drawn carriage, traveling behind the car, killing a woman named Maryam Rahil and seriously injuring her ten-year-old son, Mansour.

The latest Israeli strike came just hours after Israeli helicopters assassinated a leader from the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the Al-Nasser Salahuddin Brigades, and his wife by shelling his car as he was traveling near Shaikh Zayid City in the northern Gaza Strip.

The latest killings bring the death toll in the Gaza Strip to 28 in the past three days.

The offensive came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared Israel was "at war" with Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip, who bombard Israeli towns bordering the coastal area with projectiles.

"A war is going on in the south, every day, every night… We cannot and will not tolerate this increasing fire at Israeli citizens ... so we will continue to operate, with wisdom and daring, with the maximum precision that will enable us to hit those who want to attack us," Olmert said in a speech.

Popular Resistance Committees leader, wife killed as Israeli helicopters target car in northern Gaza Strip

Date: 17 / 01 / 2008 Time: 13:48

Gaza – Ma'an –

Israeli helicopters assassinated a leader in the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the Al-Nasser Salahuddin Brigades, and his wife by shelling his car as he was traveling near Shaikh Zayid City in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday afternoon.

Palestinian medics and sources within the Al-Nasser Salahuddin Brigades named the victims as forty-three-year-old Ra'd Abu Al-Foul and his forty-year-old wife Amina Abu Al-Foul.

Mu'awiya Hassanain, the director of ambulance and emergency services in the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that the bodies of the victims were torn to pieces. They were taken to Kamal Udwan hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

Witnesses said several other people were injured in the raid.

Today's killings bring the total number of people killed in the Gaza Strip to 25 in the past two days. On Tuesday Israeli tank fire killed Husam Zahar, the son of one of Hamas' senior leaders, Mahmoud Zahar, a former Palestinian Foreign Minister.

***Updated at 14:21pm local time.

Israeli occupation forces raid Tulkarem; kidnap 25 Palestinians

Date: 17 / 01 / 2008 Time: 19:59

Tulkarem – Ma'an –

Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the centre of the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Thursday evening, after conducting an extensive military operation in the city and kidnapping more than 25 Palestinian citizens.

Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses said that a large Israeli occupation force stormed the city centre at six o'clock on Thursday evening and surrounded a cafe next to a Fateh office. They kidnapped all of the people inside the cafe and took them away to an unknown destination.

The latest Israeli raid on the city is the first of its kind since the declaration of the Palestinian security apparatus campaign on 4 December 2007, when more than 15 Israeli occupation military vehicles stormed the city.

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