Israeli forces pushed through Gaza’s key eastern commercial crossings before dawn on Saturday, killing at least four Palestinians, witnesses and security sources said.
Dozens of tanks passed through the Karni and Nahal Oz crossings at the eastern edge of the narrow coastal strip and advanced around one kilometre to neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Gaza City where clashes broke out with armed Palestinians.
Armoured vehicles backed by helicopter gunships and drones fired missiles, killing a member of the Palestinian security forces in Zeitun.
Hani Abu Al Qumbaz (22) and Ahmed Mussa Al Sarsak (20) both gunmen from Hamas’s armed wing, were also killed by Israeli tank shelling in the nearby Shujaya neighbourhood, according to a statement from the governing Islamist group.
”Two holy warriors were martyred during their resistance to the Zionist occupation … when a Zionist tank targeted them after they carried out their mission of jihad,” the statement said.
A photographer from the Palestinian news agency was in critical condition after being shot in the face and abdomen during the clashes, medical sources said.
Israeli armoured vehicles took up positions in farmland on Gaza’s eastern border and assembled in industrial areas.
A security official at the Karni industrial zone next to the crossing told AFP that four tanks had blocked off the area where goods are stored.
”There are four of us in here and they will not let us out,” the official, who asked not to be named, said in a phone call to Agence France-Presse.
The steady boom of cannon and tank batteries could be heard firing on targets to the north-west, apparently toward the towns of Beit Hanun and Beit Lahiya which have seen deadly clashes since Thursday.
An Israeli army spokesperson described Saturday’s operation as ”limited” and aimed at uncovering ”tunnels and explosive devices in the area”.
He confirmed an ”Israeli air force attack against a tunnel used to smuggle weapons” this morning, but added: ”There is no operation in populated areas.”
Around 150 Palestinians holding foreign passports, mostly American, were evacuated by bus and escorted by members of the presidential security forces to the Erez border crossing in northern Gaza.
Israeli tanks also entered the southern Gaza town of Juhr al-Dik, amid reports of sporadic clashes with gunmen.
One Palestinian who was wounded on Friday during Israeli operations in Beit Lahiya died on Saturday, and another man was found dead in the same area.
Thirty-five Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since Israel launched a massive military operation in Gaza late on Wednesday aimed at halting rocket attacks and securing the release of a captured soldier. – Sapa-AFP