gelatik
08.11.02, 14:43
A Palestinian was killed overnight by Israeli forces, while an Israeli
armored unit swept the Khan Yunes sector of the southern Gaza Strip early
Friday, November 8, destroying a home and wounding two Palestinians. Israeli
reservists, meanwhile, accused their commanding officers of endangering the
Palestinian civilians ‘unnecessarily’.
In Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces tried to
detain 25-year-old Radi Balawni, a resistance activist from Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, who had been wanted for anti-Israeli
attacks, according to an Israeli army spokesman.
"He fled as the soldiers tried to arrest him and they opened fire," the
spokesman claimed. Another Palestinian was wounded in the shooting, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In Khan Yunes, meanwhile, the Israeli troops destroyed a three-story house
belonging to the family of Ismael Ashur Brif, 25, who was shot dead
Wednesday, November 6, after killing two people at the Rafah Yam settlement
where he worked.
During the incursion several hundred meters (yards) inside the autonomous
zone, two Palestinians were wounded, one of them critically.
Brif, who worked in the settlement for several months, smuggled in a pistol
and two hand grenades. He killed his employers and tried to seize a vehicle
before being shot down by the head of security.
The attack was claimed by the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of
the resistance movement Hamas.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed Friday's operation to AFP.
Nearly 70 Palestinian houses have been razed in similar operations since the
start of August. Human rights organizations have condemned them
as "collective punishment" while the Israeli army claims they
are "dissuasive" measures.
Meanwhile, a group of Israeli reserve soldiers who recently completed duty in
the Palestinian occupied territories, charged that senior Israeli officers in
the Gaza Strip gave orders to fire mortar shells in a way that endangered the
Palestinian civilian population, without any operational justification,
according to Israeli daily Ha’aretz, Friday November 8.
The reservists added that one of the shells fell in the heart of a densely
populated Palestinian neighborhood.
One of the soldiers told Ha'aretz that the incident began on October 11 when
a Palestinian fired on an Israeli outpost south of the settlement of
Nissanit. Troops responded with two tank shells which missed their target.
Later that evening, without having identified armed (resistance activists),
the area commander, a lieutenant colonel, ordered troops to fire several tank
shells in the direction from which they had been fired on earlier near the
Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun.
The next evening the Israeli officer ordered his troops to fire 60-millimeter
mortar shells in the same direction. The first shell landed in a residential
area in the town of Beit Hanoun. The officer reprimanded the troops for
having missed their target - the mortar was supposed to have landed in an
open field outside the town - but ordered them to resume fire. The mortar
fire was apparently carried out with the authorization of the regional
commander, a colonel, according to the paper.
"The tank fire on the evening of the incident and especially the mortar fire
the next day was inexcusable. The mortar is a very inaccurate weapon and
there is no justification for using it in a densely populated civilian area
when there is no visible target. The use of mortar shells created an
unwarranted danger to civilians," the soldier told Ha'aretz.
