Israel-Gaza Violence Erupts After Covert op killings
Militants
fired 200 rockets and mortars at Israel on Monday. One hit an empty bus,
seriously injuring a man nearby.
Israel
responded with strikes on what it said were military targets belonging to Hamas
and Islamic Jihad.
Three
Palestinians, two of them reportedly militants, were killed.
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier cut short his visit to Paris for
events to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One and returned
to Israel to consult with his security chiefs.
A Hamas commander
and an Israeli soldier were among the dead on Sunday.
Palestinians
said an Israeli unit travelling in a civilian vehicle had killed the Hamas
commander.
According
to Palestinian sources, the Israeli unit was about 3km (2 miles) inside the
Gaza Strip, which borders Israel, when militants from Hamas, which controls the
Gaza Strip, stopped the car.
The
group's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said the Israelis
opened fire, killing a local commander, Nur Barakeh.
The incident is
reported to have happened east of Khan Younis, in the south of the territory.
A
gun battle erupted and Israeli tanks and aircraft opened fire in the area,
witnesses said.
Six
of the Palestinians killed belonged to Hamas and the seventh was a member of
the militant Popular Resistance Committees, AFP news agency cited Palestinian
officials as saying.
The
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a member of the special unit involved was
killed and another was lightly wounded.
Due to the secrecy
of the operation, Israel has not revealed specific details about the mission.
The
IDF said, however, that the operation was "not intended to kill or abduct
terrorists, but to strengthen Israeli security".
The BBC's Tom
Bateman in Jerusalem says that according to a former Israeli general, the
incident was likely to have been an intelligence-gathering operation that went
wrong.
The
exposure of such an operation by Israeli special forces inside Gaza would be
extremely rare, he says.
Fawzi Barhoum, a
spokesman for Hamas, denounced the incident as a "cowardly Israeli
attack".
IDF
chief Lt Gen Gadi Eisenkot said the Israeli unit had carried out "a very
meaningful operation to Israel's security", without giving further
details.
The
Israeli military said that immediately after the clashes, 17 rockets were fired
from Gaza into Israel, three of which were shot down.
On
Monday afternoon, another 200 rockets and mortars were launched towards Israel,
60 of which were intercepted, according to the Israeli military.
Paramedics said an
Israeli man was seriously injured when a projectile hit a bus he was standing
near in the Shaar Hanegev region.
Three
people also suffered minor injuries from shrapnel in the town of Sderot.
The
Israeli military said aircraft and tanks bombed more than 20 Hamas and Islamic
Jihad targets in Gaza in retaliation, including militant compounds, observation
posts, and rocket-launching squads.
A
spokesperson added that the strikes would intensify in the coming hours.
The
Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported that three men were killed and nine
other people were wounded in the Israeli strikes. The Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine militant group said two of the dead were its members.
Hamas won
Palestinian elections in 2006 and reinforced its power in the Gaza Strip after
ousting West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' rival Fatah
faction in clashes the following year.
While
Mr Abbas' umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has signed peace
accords with Israel, Hamas does not recognise Israel's right to exist and
advocates the use of violence against it.
Israel, along with
Egypt, has maintained a blockade of Gaza since about 2006 in order, they say,
to stop attacks by militants.
Israel
and Hamas have gone to war three times, and rocket-fire from Gaza and Israeli
air strikes against militant targets are a regular occurrence.
Sunday
night's incident comes after apparent progress in an Egyptian- and UN-brokered
process to mediate after a series of escalations between the two sides in
recent months.
More
than 200 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since the end
of March - most during weekly protests along the border at which thousands have
expressed their support for the declared right of Palestinian refugees to
return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel.
Israel has said its
soldiers have only opened fire in self-defence or on potential attackers trying
to infiltrate its territory under the cover of the protests.
One
Israeli soldier was killed on the Gaza-Israel border by a Palestinian sniper in
July.
FROM .bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-
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