Israeli tanks crossed into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday near a key crossing point where about 150 Palestinians have been trapped while trying to flee from the territory since Hamas Islamists took it over. An Israeli army spokesperson said the tanks entered Gaza to protect the Erez crossing.
Hamas Islamist fighters and looters ransacked the blood-spattered Palestinian presidential compound in Gaza on Friday, rejoicing at the rout of their rivals from the Fatah faction. With Gaza effectively a new state under Hamas control, Israel and the United States were preparing to ease an embargo on the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas Islamist gunmen pressed on with their Gaza offensive on Wednesday, killing at least eight fighters loyal to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas in a Palestinian power struggle bordering on civil war. Chanting ”stop the killing”, about 1 000 Palestinians marched through Gaza City — only to draw gunfire in the air from Hamas militants.
Gunmen fired on the offices of the Palestinian prime minister in the Gaza Strip on Monday, disrupting a Cabinet meeting just hours after Egyptian officials helped mediate a truce between rival factions. ”We are taking fire,” an aide to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Hamas Islamist movement said from the building where the meeting was suspended.
Kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston said he was in good health and being treated well in a video released on Friday, the first since militants abducted him in the Palestinian enclave over 11 weeks ago. It was the clearest evidence he was alive following his March 12 abduction.
Israel seized a minister in Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s Cabinet on Saturday and pounded Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip as part of an expanded campaign against the ruling Islamist group. Israel renewed strikes on targets that included a guardhouse outside Haniyeh’s home.
Israel carried out an air strike near the Gaza residence of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Friday, but insisted he was not the target. ”Haniyeh’s home definitely was not the target,” an Israeli army spokesperson said. Ahmed Youssef, Haniyeh’s political adviser, said the bombardment was meant to send ”a message of threats” to the prime minister.
Israel launched more air strikes against Hamas Islamist targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, wounding at least seven Palestinians. The Israeli army said its aircraft, now in the second week of a bombing campaign, struck two buildings used by militants to manufacture and store munitions. Palestinians denied the buildings were used for weapons.
Israel bombed a Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip on Monday in an escalating air campaign and a senior Cabinet minister said all the group’s leaders should be killed to try to end cross-border rocket fire. Israeli aircraft carried out a series of attacks in the territory early on Monday, a day after killing eight Palestinians.
Israel killed three suspected Hamas militants in one of four pre-dawn air strikes in Gaza on Sunday as it built up pressure on the Islamist militant group to stop the firing of makeshift rockets into the Jewish state. An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed a strike had taken place on a vehicle belonging to Hamas militants.