GAZA: Israeli missile strikes in Gaza continue, at least 20 Palestinians killed on Thursday

Record ID: 353104

  • Title: GAZA: Israeli missile strikes in Gaza continue, at least 20 Palestinians killed on Thursday
  • Date: 29th February 2008
  • Summary: HOSPITAL SECURITY TALKING TO MAN WIDE OF CROWD WAITING OUTSIDE HOSPITAL
  • Embargoed: 15th March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAC8EE1XVSOZTVPJ5EVWSTAHUAS
  • Story Text: Israel unleashed a furious sequence of air strikes on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday (February 28), killing 20 Palestinians including several civilians and children as well as Islamist militants involved in firing rockets at Israel.
    The Red Cross and European Union called for restraint as the two-day death toll rose to 33. These included one Israeli, whose death on Wednesday was the first such killing since May, four Palestinian boys who medics said were playing football on Thursday, and a baby killed in the bombing of a Hamas ministry.
    Dozens more people were wounded in the crowded territory and explosions and gunfire continued well after nightfall.
    An Israeli strike in Khan Younis late on Thursday (February 28) killed two power company workers died when their van was hit.
    Another attack on Gaza City caused severe damage to the local headquarters of the workers union. In this attack eight Palestinians were injured, among them three toddlers and three women, medical sources said.
    A third attack in the Jabaliya refugee camp caused damage to what appeared to be an empty building, injuring several people.
    The bloodiest exchanges in months came days before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returns to the region hoping to invigorate limping peace negotiations between Israel and the anti-Hamas Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank.
    As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other officials offered mixed signals on any major ground offensive, residents said soldiers raided homes in southern Gaza and a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a sworn enemy of Hamas, accused Israel of trying to wreck the U.S.-backed peace process.
    At least 11 of those killed on Thursday were militants. The bloodshed took to 66 the number of Gazans killed in Israeli action so far in February, passing the 62 deaths in all of January.
    Though many were gunmen, it is a toll Palestinians and Israel's critics say shows a disproportionate response to daily rocket fire that has caused few casualties in Israel while nonetheless badly disrupting life in border towns and villages.
    Amid Israeli outcry over the death of a compatriot who was father to four children, the Foreign Ministry spokesman warned the rockets launched by Hamas "may leave us no choice" but to send back in troops, who quit Gaza in 2005 and have since mounted only brief raids.
    Some of the rockets hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon, in an escalation that saw the use of Soviet Katyusha missiles with longer range than locally improvised weapons.
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