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Israeli tanks, bulldozers
cross into Gaza
Gaza City—Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed into the Gaza Strip
on Friday after the Jewish state warned it would retaliate against
Hamas for a deadly explosion of violence earlier this week.
Ten tanks and two armoured bulldozers entered one kilometre (0.6
mile) into Gaza, west of the Bureij refugee camp, drawing heavy fire
from militants, Palestinian security sources said.
Two Palestinian teenagers were wounded in clashes, Gaza medics said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed forces were operating in the
Hamas-run territory and had come under gun and mortar fire.
She said Israeli forces carried out an air strike in the same area.
Witnesses did not immediately report any casualties from the air
raid. Hours earlier two Hamas militants were killed in another air
strike in southern Gaza.
Israel has vowed to “settle the score” with the Islamist group for a
border attack that killed two Israeli civilians on Wednesday, which
followed a month of relative calm in and around Gaza.
While Hamas has not claimed responsibility for that attack, which
three other groups said they carried out, Israel blames the Islamist
group because it controls Gaza, where it ousted forces loyal to
moderate president Mahmud Abbas in June.
“Hamas today runs the Gaza Strip, and this organisation and all its
members bear responsibility for the incessant terror and it will
have to bear the inevitable price for its actions,” Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert told a rally of his Kadima party near Tel Aviv late
Thursday.
“I promise you that the response against Hamas will be such that
Hamas will be no longer able to act against Israeli citizens,” he
said.
Hamas said such statements clearly showed that Israel was preparing
the ground for a new military operation against Gaza.
Gaza militants on Wednesday breached the border with Israel under
cover of mortar fire, killing two Israeli contractors at the Nahal
Oz oil terminal that provides the Palestinian territory with its
fuel supplies.
On the Palestinian side, four civilians and three fighters were
killed during and immediately after the attack. Israel said it
temporarily shut down the terminal, but insisted it would continue
providing minimal fuel supplies to the Palestinian territory that
has been under a crippling blockade for months.—AFP
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