Friday, January 18, 2008

Israeli air strike kills mother and her two sons in Gaza


"GAZA, PIC-- The Israeli Apache choppers and reconnaissance planes hovering over Gaza Strip committed new crime against the Palestinian civilians as they killed a mother and her two sons in Beit Lahia city, north of Gaza Strip, Thursday night.

Palestinian doctors in the city's Kamal Odwan hospital identified the victims as Maryam Saleh Al-Rahel and her two sons Mansour and Saleh Al-Rahel, adding that two other Palestinian citizens were moderately wounded in the raid.

Palestinian eyewitnesses affirmed that the mother and her two sons were riding on a horse-driven cart in one of the city's streets when an Israeli drone targeted them with an air-to surface missile, mutilating their bodies to the extent that it took doctors sometimes before they could identify them.

Few hours later, three Palestinian fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, were martyred and three others were seriously wounded when Israeli warplanes targeted a QB advanced outpost south of Gaza city with three rockets.

The martyrs were identified as Ashraf Al-Ashi, 25, Mahmoud Al-Banna, 22, and Shadi Kutaifan, 23, thus raising to nine the number of Palestinian citizens killed with Israeli weapons on Thursday only.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the IOF troops killed 23 Palestinian citizens and wounded more than 50 others, many of them in critical conditions.

The Israeli military escalation came only three days after US president George W. Bush visited the Middle East and conferred with Israeli premier Ehud Olmert and discussed with him security matters in the region.

Despite, the bloody Israeli crimes against the Palestinian civilians, no stern condemnation from the international community was made to stop the bloodbath in Gaza.

Apparently finding itself pushed to the wall, Hamas Movement threatened to carryout tit-for-tat retaliatory armed operations in the Israeli depth if the IOF troops' aggressions on Gaza Strip and the West Bank didn’t come to a halt immediately.

"If Palestinian blood in Gaza Strip and the West Bank continued to be shed, then a similar blood shed will take place in the Israeli depth", declared Hammad Al-Rokob, the spokesman of Hamas Movement in Khan Younis city.

In a press statement he issued, and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, Rokob explained that the IOF bloody crimes in Gaza Strip in addition to the wing-clipping economic siege imposed by Israel on the tiny Strip will push the Palestinian resistance to resume military operations in the Israeli depth.

He also accused the Israeli occupation government of not seriously searching for peace in the region, and that it only exploits time to shed more Palestinian blood, and to expedite settlement projects in the occupied city of Jerusalem with the aim to Judaize it.

"Our Zionist enemy, perhaps, didn't comprehend yet that no force on this globe could break the determination of the Palestinian people and Hamas Movement", Rokob said adding that Hamas was strong despite the pain."

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