Several hundred Palestinians formed a human shield around the Gaza Strip home of a militant targeted by the Israeli army on the weekend, prompting the military to call off a threatened air strike.
Between 200 to 300 neighbours flocked to the family home of Wail Barud in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip after receiving an Israeli warning that the house would be destroyed, witnesses said.
Barud is a member of the radical Popular Resistance Committees, one of three factions that claimed responsibility for the capture of an Israeli corporal in June, triggering a massive Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Israel has been carrying out nightly raids against targets across the Gaza Strip since militants’ rockets killed an Israeli woman in the nearby town of Sderot on Wednesday.
An Israeli military spokesman told the media that the strike against the home in Jabaliya was called off after the crowds gathered.
“Basically yes,” the spokesperson said when asked if the raid was aborted. “We don’t want to hurt uninvolved civilians. The terrorists are using uninvolved civilians as human shields.
“We’ll continue to operate against terrorist infrastructure while continuing to distinguish between the civilians and the terrorists,” the spokesperson added. — AFP