Israeli forces blasted their way into a Gaza town early on Wednesday, killing a Palestinian civilian and wounding four more in an operation to root out militants, as fresh violence threatened to cripple the latest efforts to restore calm.
Despite the Israeli raid, which followed the killing of a soldier guarding a Jewish settlement, security officials were to meet to discuss an Israeli withdrawal from Hebron, the next step in a phased pullback plan designed to defuse the 23-month crisis.
Israel tanks and infantry stormed into the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis at 2am (2300 GMT Tuesday), sending residents of the bullet-scarred refugee camp scattering and ordering the evacuation of two high buildings overlooking the neighbouring Jewish settlement of Gush Katif.
Twenty tanks and armoured vehicles, backed by attack helicopters, opened fire on the camp, after which army sappers moved in and dynamited the buildings, which the army said were used by Palestinian snipers targeting the coastal settlements.
The blast also destroyed 15 of small refugee houses in the immediate vicinity and damaged another 22, Palestinian security officials said.
One man was crushed to death when the blast and falling debris obliterated his house, Palestinian officials said.
The army said it had ”undertaken a search operation in the suburbs of Khan Yunis after an outbreak of attacks in the sector.”
It said the soldier killed on Tuesday morning had been shot by a Palestinian sniper hiding in Khan Yunis.
The Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of the Islamic Hamas movement, claimed the attack which was followed by an exchange of fire in which a young Palestinian was killed.
The army said it was ordered to ”destroy abandoned houses that are used as shelter or as firing positions” by armed Palestinians.
The operation lasted around four hours.
Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, whose ”Gaza First” plan for a staged Israeli withdrawal has switched focus to the calmer southern West Bank, warned Tuesday that if the Palestinian security forces did not rein in militants, Israel would.
The withdrawal plan, which began 24 hours earlier with an Israeli pullback from Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, is aimed at handing back reoccupied towns to the reformed Palestinian security forces, who have to ensure there are no more anti-Israeli attacks.
It is meant to gradually scale back Israel’s two-month re-occupation of almost all of the West Bank, alleviate the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living under curfew and pave the way to resumed talks.
Bethlehem has remained calm since the changing of the guard, but the killing has continued elsewhere in the West Bank.
In Tulkarem, in the north, a militant was killed in an Israeli army raid early on Tuesday, and in Ramallah, the brother of a top Palestinian faction leader was killed in clashes later in the day.
The Israeli security cabinet on Wednesday discussed the plan, which has been rejected by Palestinian militant groups as a bid to undermine the intifada, the Palestinians’ uprising against Israeli occupation of their land.
And General Moshe Kaplinsky, who heads Israel’s central command that includes the West Bank, was to meet Gaza Strip public security chief General Abdel Razaq al-Majaida and West Bank police chief Haj Ismail to discuss further withdrawals, expected to continue in Hebron to the south of Bethlehem.
The Hebron settlers’ council called on the Israeli government not to withdraw troops from the divided city, in the heart of which some 400 heavily guarded Jewish settlers live surrounded by some 120 000 Palestinians.
Army representative Ruth Yaron told army radio ”the Palestinians have started taking their responsibilities on security matters in Bethlehem but not in Gaza.
”Our policy is to alleviate sanctions and withdraw from quiet areas while at the same time continuing to fight against terrorists where they are still operating,” she added, without specifically mentioning Hebron.
Israel has said it will not halt its hunt for wanted Palestinians in the West Bank, and late on Tuesday Israeli undercover troops killed the brother of Ahmed Saadat, the jailed head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
It also pressed ahead with its controversial policy of arresting the relatives of wanted militants and threatening them with expulsion to the Gaza Strip, nabbing three siblings of hardliners in the northern West Bank. – Sapa-AFP