GAZA/ISRAEL: Israeli raid on Gaza underway, rockets hit Israeli town during UN High Commissioner for human rigts visit

Record ID: 352189

  • Title: GAZA/ISRAEL: Israeli raid on Gaza underway, rockets hit Israeli town during UN High Commissioner for human rigts visit
  • Date: 21st November 2006
  • Summary: (W3) BEIT HANOUN, GAZA (NOVEMBER 21, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ISRAELI TANKS AND BULLDOZERS OPERATING IN RESIDENTIAL AREA CLOSE OF TANKS SURROUNDING HOUSE, SMOKE RISING BULLDOZERS OPERATING NEAR HOUSE
  • Embargoed: 6th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVANTUH5MYCRDJSUG1BFIW5X6JS
  • Story Text: While an Israeli raid on Gaza was underway on Tuesday (November 21), Palestinian militants fired rockets into an Israeli town, critically wounding one person, as the UN High Commissioner for human rights toured the town.
    Commissioner Louise Arbour, on a tour of the Palestinian territories and Israel, was unhurt in the attack in Sderot, a working class town located some 5 km (3 miles) away from Gaza.
    "I was on the outskirts of a factory immediately after it was hit, I understand somebody was seriously wounded," Arbour told Reuters Television during a visit to Sderot, a town frequently targeted by militants in Gaza. "I share their sense of hopelessness and vulnerability and frustration frankly to have been so exposed".
    Arbour visited the town before a rocket salvo earlier on Tuesday severely wounded an Israeli worker in a factory.
    Several workers in the industrial zone where the rocket landed tried to storm Arbour's car and one woman threw a clump of dirt and pebbles at the vehicle. Police pushed them back.
    Arbour, a Canadian, arrived in Sderot from Gaza, where she called on political, military and militia leaders to ensure "the well-being of civilians" and break a cycle of violence.
    Izz el-Deen al-Qassam, the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, said it launched the makeshift rockets at Sderot and had not known Arbour would be there.
    A video handed to Reuters by Hamas military wing on Tuesday showed Qassam rockets allegedly being launched from Gaza towards Israel.
    Hours before the Sderot attack, Israeli troops and tanks launched a deep raid against a Palestinian militant stronghold in Gaza City, killing a gunman during clashes in which an elderly woman also died, witnesses and hospital officials said.
    The officials said it was not immediately clear who fired at the 70-year-old woman. An Israeli military spokeswoman called the operation 'a raid to detain militants'.
    Israeli forces also entered Jabaliya refugee camp and Beit Lahiya, a northern Gaza town, a launching ground for rockets.
    An Israeli tank shell fired on a house in Jabaliya wounded at least three Palestinians, officials said.
    Israeli forces and settlers quit Gaza last year, but the military renewed ground operations in the strip after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a deadly border raid in June.
    Israel has killed more than 370 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, since it began the offensive, hospital officials and residents say. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed and a woman in Sderot has died in a rocket strike.
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