Israel eases Gaza siege after killing 8 Palestinians

BEIT HANUN (Gaza)—Israeli troops have left Beit Hanun as eight people were killed elsewhere in Gaza, raising to more than 60 the Palestinian death toll in the beleaguered territory in a week.
Soldiers departed overnight from a town the military charged had become a launchpad for rocket attacks against Israel, repositioning elsewhere in the northern Gaza Strip and leaving behind scenes of destruction. “We withdrew our forces from Beit Hanun after having completed our mission,” a military spokesman confirmed after daybreak.
Roads were left gouged out. Homes, two mosques and a school were destroyed. The historic old town was pockmarked with bullet holes and shell craters, electricity pylons ripped from the ground and sewage spewing in the streets. Residents picking their way through the wreckage mourned their “martyrs”, eyes red with fatigue, filled with hate and tears, reporter said.
In Gaza for crunch talks with the Hamas-led cabinet on forming a unity government, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas condemned Israel’s attacks, charging that Palestinian casualties were no guarantee of its security. “If Israel wants peace and security, the path of Palestinian blood is not the one to be followed,” Abbas told.
“The Israelis announced that they had left Beit Hanun and we thought they had finished, but unfortunately they’ve begun again,” he added. “This proves Israel is determined to continue its aggression not only in Beit Hanun but in the entire Gaza Strip.” Five militants and a woman were among the eight Palestinians killed Tuesday in a string of incidents in which Israeli troops opened fire.
Two of the militants were from Islamic Jihad, which claimed a Monday attack in which a Palestinian woman blew herself up alongside Israeli troops, one from the military wing of Hamas and two from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. A woman, Nahla Shanti, and Abdel Majid Ghirbawi were killed when a shell struck the home of Hamas lawmaker Jamileh al-Shanti where the two were staying.
The army said it returned fire after militants fired two rocket-propelled grenades at its forces in the area. An Israeli military spokesman said forces “identified hitting 10 gunmen” after six incidents in which gunmen approached the army or troops came under attack in northern Gaza as well as one air strike on a militant cell.
The six-day reoccupation of Beit Hanun failed to halt rocket fire, with some 40 rockets landing in Israel since the start of Operation Autumn Clouds. Gaza militants carried out their deepest rocket attack into Israel in months Tuesday, when four homemade rockets hit the town of Ashkelon, causing no damage, hours after the army rumbled out of Beit Hanun.
An army spokesman said troops had seized a large amount of weaponry, including rocket launchers, anti-tank missile launchers and grenades during the operation. Dozens of Palestinians “suspected of terror involvement” were taken for questioning, he said.
The incursion, the latest in four months of Israeli activity in Gaza in which more than 300 Palestinians have been killed since a soldier was captured in late June, was condemned by the international community. Israeli officials have repeatedly vowed that they have no intention of permanently reoccupying Gaza, from whichn the Jewish state withdrew troops and settlers last year after a 38-year occupation. In all, 64 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a week, including more than 50 and one Israeli soldier who died during Autumn Clouds. Despite the bloodshed, Abbas was due to hold another round of crunch talks Tuesday with Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya on a unity cabinet.
Abbas has tried in vain for months to persuade the Islamist party to agree to a moderate platform acceptable to the international community in order to lift a crushing economic and political boycott of the Palestinian territories. In Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem expressed support for a Palestinian unity government after talks with Khaled Meshaal, the hardline exiled leader of Hamas, the official Sana news agency reported.—Agencies