Israeli police were on Wednesday placed on alert for possible Palestinian attacks after militant groups called for a resumption of suicide bombings inside the Jewish state, a police spokesperson said.
”Our forces have been placed on an advance state of alert across Israeli territory following events in the Gaza Strip,” saud Micky Rosenfeld.
”We are also deployed ahead of the gay parade scheduled for Friday in Jerusalem, which has already provoked numerous violent protests,” he added.
Israeli police chief Moshe Karadi has said 12 000 officers will be deployed to keep order in Jerusalem during the homosexual parade.
A Hamas leader called for renewed suicide attacks while a Palestinian government spokesperson said Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth after 18 people were killed when Israeli shells fell in northern Gaza.
A spokesperson for the rival Fatah party also called for a resumption of suicide attacks inside the Jewish state following the attack.
The last suicide bombing in Israel was in Tel Aviv last April when nine people were killed in an attack claimed by the radical Islamic Jihad faction.
Mahmud Assaly, director of the Beit Lahya hospital, said Israeli shells had struck several homes.
The identity of the victims was not immediately known.
Five houses were destroyed in the north-western part of the town, which has 30 000 residents.
Resident Ataf Ahmed (22) fled after the first shell hit a house.
”I ran away and saw a second shell strike the houses. A shell fell on people who had ran out into the street,” he said.
Regret
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret on Wednesday and offered humanitarian assistance to the wounded.
Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz in a statement jointly ”expressed their regret over the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Beit Hanoun”.
They ”offered the Palestinian Authority urgent humanitarian assistance and immediate medical care for the wounded,” the statement said.
Peretz informed the premier ”that he has ordered an urgent investigation into the matter and a halt to artillery fire in the Gaza Strip until the completion of the inquiry into the circumstances, the background and the considerations that led to
the tragic results.”
‘Profoundly shocking’
The European Union’s External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner
expressed shock on Wednesday at the killing of the Palestinians.
”The killing this morning of so many civilians in Gaza, including many children, is a profoundly shocking event,” she said in a statement.
”Israel has a right to defend itself, but not at the price of the lives of the innocent,” she said, and called for the ”utmost restraint” from Israel and the Palestinians.
The deaths bring to 5 553 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an Agence France-Presse count. – Sapa-AFP