MIDDLE EAST: Israel kills 11 Palestinians in a missile strike on a van carrying militants and rockets in Gaza -- the deadliest such attack in nearly four years

Record ID: 341311

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Israel kills 11 Palestinians in a missile strike on a van carrying militants and rockets in Gaza -- the deadliest such attack in nearly four years
  • Date: 13th June 2006
  • Summary: (W3) GAZA CITY, GAZA (JUNE 13, 2006) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER ISMAIL HANIYEH SAYING: "In this new massacre, children were killed by Israeli planes, which fired missiles indiscriminately, even hitting civilian institutions."
  • Embargoed: 28th June 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAA884E27PG79IMAO2V3OXOFBZG
  • Story Text: An Israeli missile strike on a van carrying militants and rockets killed 11 Palestinians, nine of them civilians, in Gaza on Tuesday (June 13) in the deadliest such attack in nearly four years.
    The air strike signalled that Israel would not flinch from targeting rocket squads in densely populated areas in spite of an outcry over the deaths of seven Palestinians on a Gaza beach on Friday in a blast militants blamed on Israeli shellfire.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the missile attack "state terrorism".
    "This Israeli escalation, if it indicates anything, then it shows that Israel is determined to go ahead all the way to the end and their goal seems to be to abolish the Palestinian people. We tell them that we will stand strong in our land and country and insist on peace and security and stability and the Palestinian state and none of these actions which are terrorists acts.. This is called state terrorism," he said.
    The high civilian toll was certain to set militant groups, already skirmishing between themselves, on a course of even fiercer confrontation with Israel.
    At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has approved a shipment of weapons to forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, an Olmert aide said on Tuesday, in a move that bolsters Abbas against the rival Hamas group.
    Israel said it targeted the Gaza van because it was carrying powerful armaments that could have been used against it.
    Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles. The first hit the vehicle, causing it to crash into the pavement. A second missile hit as a crowd gathered and rescuers arrived.
    Hospital officials said nine civilians, including two children and two medics, were killed as well as two Islamic Jihad militants. About 30 people were wounded.
    Rockets could be clearly seen in the wreckage of a yellow van. The Israeli army said the projectiles could hit targets up to 20 km (12 miles) away, a range far greater than that of the crude Qassam rockets usually fired by militants from Gaza.
    Militants have fired more than 100 rockets into Israel since the Gaza beach explosion, the army said. Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza last year and has said it will not tolerate cross-border rocket attacks.
    A senior Israeli military official said the findings of an army investigation into the beach incident, due to be released later on Tuesday, would show the blast was probably not caused by an Israeli artillery shell.
    He suggested instead that a land mine planted by a Palestinian militant group might have been the cause.
    Blaming Israel for Friday's explosion, Hamas, the Islamic militant group that now heads the Palestinian government, declared an end to a 16-month-old truce with the Jewish state.
    The group, dedicated to Israel's destruction, was responsible for nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israeli cities after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.
    It last carried out a suicide bombing in 2004 and largely abided by the truce reached in early 2005.
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