IDF TRYING TO END ROCKET FIRE
July 6, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I am hoping Hamas will get the message – IF YOU WON’T STOP THE AL AKSA MARTYRS BRIGADES, ISLAMIC JIHAD, AND OTHER ULTRA EXTREME TERRORIST GROUPS FROM LAUNCHING ROCKETS OUT OF GAZA, THEN WE WILL! After Israel does pull out perhaps we will see Hamas and Fatah start to try to control their ultra extremist factions, because they certainly will not want to see the IDF make a second intrusion into Gaza in response to it. Time will tell!
Begin Haaretz Article
IDF takes Swath of Northern Gaza to End Rocket Fire
July 6, 2006
By Avi Issacharoff, Amos Harel, Aluf Benn, Mijal Grinberg and Yuval Azoulay
Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies
Eleven Palestinians, including one civilian, were killed by the Israel Defense Forces in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia
on Thursday afternoon, bringing the death toll to 17 since the start of an incursion in northern Gaza aimed at ending Qassam fire.
Palestinian officials said eight people were killed and 20 more wounded when an Israel Air Force aircraft fired a missile and two shells at a group
of armed militants in Beit Lahia. Three others were killed and another 35 wounded in further clashes.
The IDF confirmed that it had carried out an air strike targeting a group of gunmen.
Six more Palestinians, five militants and a civilian, were killed in Gaza earlier Thursday, following the start of an Israel Defense Forces incursion in northern Gaza.
A large contingent of IDF infantry and armor units moved into the ruins of three former settlements in northern Gaza in the early hours of the morning, after Qassam rockets fired from the area hit the southern coastal city of Ashkelon for the second time in two days.
Two IDF soldiers have been lightly wounded since the start of the operation, one by Palestinian gunfire and the other when a weapon misfired.
The army aimed to capture a broad swath of territory of about one-and-a-quarter kilometers into Palestinian Authority territory, close to Beit Hanun, in an effort to hinder Qassam rocket launchers from targeting Ashkelon and to push them back toward Gaza City and the Jabalya refugee camp.
In southern Gaza, two militants were killed and five others were wounded Thursday afternoon in an Israel Air Force strike, witnesses said.
The IDF confirmed it had carried out the strike close to the Kissufim crossing, after IDF troops were attacked with anti-tank missiles and a rocket.
Militants gathered around the area after the air strike, taking up positions with grenade launchers.
Earlier Thursday, a Palestinian civilian was killed in fierce fighting between troops and gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia.
Beit Lahia is situated close to the former settlements of Dugit, Nissanit and Elei Sinai, where troops were to establish a buffer zone to prevent fire on southern Israel.
The dead man, named as 20-year-old Mohammed Atat, was killed by gunfire from an IDF tank. Further Palestinian injuries were reported.
IDF tanks and helicopter gunships fired at militant positions inside the town.
The gunmen responded with automatic weapons fire.
Tanks later moved inside the western part of the town, where they confronted gunmen from different factions, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
During the night, the IDF targeted a cell of militants in northern laying explosives, killing two of them.
A third Palestinian militant was killed and a Fatah building struck in southern Gaza.
Palestinians also said that a Palestinian policeman was killed in an explosion caused by IDF shelling on Beit Lahia beach.
The military said that it was not responsible for the blast.
IDF spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal on Thursday called the operation a “limited incursion… to ensure the release of our abducted soldier and to stop the rocket fire into Israel.”
“The purpose of this operation is to remove the threat of Palestinian rockets on Israeli towns and communities and to provide Israeli citizens with peace and tranquility as they sit in their homes and go about their daily lives,” David Baker, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office, told Haaretz on Thursday.
Before daybreak, IDF troops and some 15 tanks entered the areas where Nissanit, Dugit and Elei Sinai had stood. As ground forces edged forward, artillery and Israel Air Force aircraft struck targets in the area, aiming at bases and groups of militants.
The troops also entered the Al-Atara neighborhood close to Beit Lahia, from where the rockets were fired at Ashkelon.
“Our presence there doesn’t mean that we intend to remain in the Gaza Strip. We simply want to prevent firing at our towns,” Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio on Thursday.
The new contingent of troops is preparing for a relatively extended stay, unlike in other areas of the Gaza Strip where the IDF has been operating this past week.
End Haaretz Article
Some have wondered why I don’t comment much about North Korea. I have written many things about North Korea in the last five years of our web site in our Prophecy Update Archives.
But I believe the events now occurring in the Middle East are far, far more important in the fulfillment of prophecy than North Korean events at the present time.
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