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Two Palestinian policemen try to fix a pole with a Palestinian flag by the rubble of their post in the southern Gaza Strip
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GAZA
CITY, August 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian police
on Wednesday returned to three Gaza Strip checkpoints destroyed by the
Israeli army, as a first step under the security plan for Israel to
hand over control in areas of the coastal strip, police and witnesses
said.
“Today
we are starting measures on the ground, putting police in checkpoints
they manned before the intifada,” a police official said, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Police
were back at two checkpoints in the area of Khan Yunis in the south
and one near Beit Lahia, just north of Gaza City, witnesses said.
Under
the plan, Israeli forces are to pull back from positions in
Palestinian self-rule zones they have reoccupied since the start of
the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, as Palestinian security forces
ensure resistance fighters do not attack Israeli targets such as
settlements or military posts. Israeli forces left Bethlehem on
August 19.
The
largely symbolic move on Wednesday came despite an overnight Israeli
incursion into an autonomous Palestinian zone just south of Gaza City.
According
to Palestinian security sources, Israeli tanks, backed by helicopters
and navy boats entered the area and gunfire and explosions could be
heard from the Sheikh Ajli area south of Gaza City on the
Mediterranean coast, the sources added.
The
operation was carried out to foil an arms-smuggling operation into
Gaza, Israeli military sources claimed early Wednesday.
The
operation began with armored cars penetrating the autonomous
Palestinian sector. There were no initial reports of casualties.
Israeli
warships fired at barrels floating in the sea - often used to mark
arms sunken arms caches - Israeli public radio reported. One of the
barrels exploded, it added. After a pause, the sea search
was resumed at day break. There had been no earlier reports of trouble
in the area, said AFP.
In
the southern Gaza Strip, a Jewish home in the Gush Katif settlement
bloc, was hit by a Palestinian mortar, damaging the roof but causing
no casualties, the Israeli military said.
Meanwhile,
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer was set to meet
Palestinian interior minister Abdel Razaq Al-Yahya later in the day to
discuss further extensions of the plan.
The
Israeli minister has insisted his project is still “alive” despite
an army refusal to quit Palestinian areas of Hebron (Al-Khalil), a
West Bank city expected to be the next in line for a withdrawal.
Gaza
was originally chosen to be the litmus test for renewed security
cooperation, because its security infrastructure has been spared the
destruction wrought by months of Israeli reoccupation of the West
Bank.
However,
according to the Israeli defense ministry, the meeting was postponed. “Defense
Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer decided to postpone the security meeting
planned for this evening with the Palestinians,” a statement said.
“This
decision was due to the serious incident in which a mortar round was
fired at the kindergarten (in a Jewish settlement) of an apartment
block in Gush Katif” in the southern Gaza Strip, it said.
