Israel on Wednesday launched its first air strike against Palestinian militants since armed groups began observing a de facto truce, seriously wounding a Hamas militant and jeopardising the fragile peace.
Israeli forces targeted a Palestinian militant cell in the Khan Yunis area in the southern Gaza Strip as it was about to launch a mortar attack on a nearby Jewish settlement, a military source said.
”They were aerially targeted and we identified hitting one of them,” the source said. ”It was moments before they were about to fire, they had the launcher in place and the missile was in sight.”
Palestinian medical sources said Ahmed Shahwan, a 24-year-old Hamas member from Khan Yunis, lost both legs and an arm in the attack.
Violence has dropped considerably since militants began observing a truce in late January, but the Israeli government has repeatedly accused Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas of not doing enough to disarm armed groups.
The Israeli source said the air strike came after five mortar shells were fired by mililtants at the settlements of Morag and Neve Dekalim.
Several more mortars were fired at the area shortly after the air strike, bringing the total number to 14, the army said, adding that one person was lightly injured in the strikes.
The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said its members fired the mortars to avenge the death of one of its members late on Tuesday.
”The Palestinian people will not keep still in the face of Israeli crimes and aggression,” Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said after the raid, describing it as ”a serious escalation”.
But he was reluctant to declare an end to calm period, saying only: ”Our people know how to defend themselves.”
Amid the violence, the Israeli authorities sought to speed up preparations for the Gaza evacuation, serving the 8 000 Jewish settlers with a deadline to relocate en masse to Nitzanim, an area on the southern Israeli coast.
The move came shortly after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon voiced concern about the state of readiness and urged all bodies involved in the withdrawal to move as swiftly as possible to conclude preparations.
Justice Minister Tzippi Livni said the option to move to Nitzanim will remain open for seven more days, after a meeting of the withdrawal preparation committee.
She said 426 settler families — about a quarter of the total in Gaza — have signed up to relocated en masse in Nitzanim.
According to public radio, the plan needs at least 450 families to be workable.
The pull-out is due to begin in less than three months, but issues such as where to house the settlers, future schooling for children and even whether the homes should be demolished have still to be resolved.
On Tuesday, Sharon appeared distinctly unimpressed about the state of readiness as he toured sites in the southern Negev desert, where both temporary and permanent housing is being built for the settlers.
”We must work immediately and quickly,” said Sharon, according to a statement from his office. ”It is a shame to waste even one minute. Start working with all your might.”
With the government’s preparations for the pull-out coming under heavy criticism, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres also admitted planning has been sluggish.
”It is very difficult because expectations are immediate and growing and solutions are coming slow. We would like to limit the discrepancies and the gaps,” he said in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra, where he was attending a conference of Nobel laureates.
Even security preparations came in to question on Monday after opponents blocked dozens of roads in a ”trial-run” protest ahead of a wider campaign of civil disobedience this summer.
Cabinet minister Haim Ramon, a member of the centre-left Labour party, described the police’s response to the protest as ”feeble”.
On the Palestinian political front, MPs approved a new electoral law ahead of planned elections in July but ignored a request from Abbas to adopt system of full proportional representation.
The Palestinian Legislative Council passed the Bill on its third and final reading, stipulating that two-thirds of MPs will be elected by constituencies and the remainder by proportional representation.
Abbas has insisted that July’s elections will go ahead on schedule, despite calls from his own colleagues for a delay amid increasing fears that Hamas will make big gains in the polls. — Sapa-AFP