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Israeli combat helicopters fired rockets and machine guns at the Palestinian preventive security building
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GAZA
CITY, November 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In an
overnight raid on Gaza City, Israel sent tanks and helicopter gunships
against Palestinian security forces in Gaza early Monday, November 18.
Four
Palestinians were wounded in the raid, as Israeli occupation forces
clashed with armed Palestinians as the forces surrounded and then
partially destroyed a base of the Palestinian preventive security
forces.
Israeli
combat helicopters fired rockets and machine guns at the preventive
security building in the southern Tal el-Hawa district of Gaza City,
hitting it by rocket at least twice, Palestinian security sources told
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Then
some 30 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles, accompanied by a
bulldozer, moved in just before midnight and encircled it.
The
bulldozer demolished the perimeter wall before the tanks rolled in
through the breach and fired at the targeted building, said AFP.
The
building was partially destroyed and six nearby buildings were
damaged.
Four
Palestinians – three policemen and a cameraman – were wounded by
the Israeli army during the incursion.
The
Israeli army justified the destruction of the Palestinian preventive
security forces by repeating accusations of terrorism, which it blames
on all sections of the Palestinian people: the Palestinian Authority,
resistance movements and ordinary Palestinians.
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Israeli occupation soldiers check the documents of handcuffed Palestinians
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"The
preventive security in the Gaza Strip is involved in terrorism,"
Israeli Brigadier General Israel Ziv alleged. "Interrogation of
Palestinians arrested and this overnight raid proved that," he
continued.
In
the two-year Palestinian Intifada, or uprising against Israeli
occupation, "many men who have come out of its ranks have taken
part in the production of arms or in attacks alongside … [Islamic
resistance movement] Hamas or [Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s
resistance movement] Fatah," Ziv said of the preventive security
force.
During
the latest overnight Gaza incursion, "we found many arms at the
base of this organization, including dozens of mortars, grenade
launchers, a Qassam missile, a weapons production facility and an
enormous amount of subversive material," he added.
Israeli
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who retired as army commander in July,
also said the Gaza raid revealed "close links between"
Palestinian resistance groups and Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
"The
army raid last night proves once again the close links between the
Palestinian Authority's security services and … Hamas and Islamic
Jihad," he said in a statement.
During
the raid on Gaza, the occupation army also destroyed the house of a
Palestinian they had abducted two days earlier, AFP reported.
Some
Israeli tanks were damaged by explosives laid in their path, but none
were destroyed, the army said.
Israeli
forces also abducted 12 Palestinians during a security sweep
throughout the West Bank overnight, the occupation army said in a
statement, according to AFP.
Palestinian
security sources said two of the men seized were the heads of the
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah resistance
movement in the city. They said Nasser Bedawi, 36, and Rayed Rowash,
27, were arrested in Nablus' Balata refugee camp.
Meanwhile,
Iran's foreign ministry firmly rejected allegations that the Islamic
republic has been providing military assistance to the Palestinian
resistance group Hamas, IRNA reported Monday.
"We
only give moral and spiritual support to the Palestinian people,"
foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying.
The
Israeli media, notably radio Israel, has accused Iran of allegedly
helping Hamas produce a new rocket.
Both
Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad have representative offices in
Tehran.
