Israel presses Gaza assault, 26 killed
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-07-07 22:05
Israel has pressed on with its bloody offensive against Gaza a day after
reoccupying land and waging multiple air strikes in the deadliest 24 hours in
the Palestinian territories for four years.
Three Palestinians, one of them a teenager, were killed as Israeli artillery
and aircraft pounded the northern Gaza Strip for a second day. Twenty-five
Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since the offensive began
late Wednesday.
|
An Israeli soldier takes his position under a
vine during a military operation in the Askar refugee camp in the West
Bank city of Nablus. Israel has pressed on with its bloody offensive
against Gaza a day after reoccupying land and waging multiple air strikes
in the deadliest 24 hours in the Palestinian territories for four years.
[AFP]
|
Faced with the mounting death toll and the worst Middle East crisis in
months, the UN Security Council debated a draft resolution demanding Israel
withdraw from Gaza immediately and release detained Palestinian officials on
Friday.
But the United States, Israel's closest ally, described the text as
"unbalanced" and troops continued their ground assault aimed at securing the
release of a soldier captured by Palestinian militants 12 days ago.
A Palestinian teenager, a deaf man and militant were killed by Israeli tank
fire and an air strike on the town of Beit Lahiya, the main battleground in
northern Gaza, medical and security officials said.
In a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, another Palestinian militant was
shot dead in clashes with Israeli forces in Nablus, where radicals have
threatened to unleash untold violence should Israel move further into Gaza.
Two 16-year-old Palestinians also died from Israeli fire during an incursion
into the similarly volatile northern West Bank town of Jenin on Thursday.
But in the biggest escalation of the crisis since the soldier was abducted,
Israel on Thursday sent troops deep into the northern Gaza Strip, effectively
creating a buffer zone in a territory it withdrew from in September last year.
Israel has vowed to use everything in its power to increase the pressure on
the embattled Hamas-led government to free 19-year-old corporal Gilad Shalit and
to stop rocket attacks.
|
