GAZA
CITY, June 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli
helicopter missiles and ground forces killed four Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip on Wednesday, June 25, further damaging efforts to engineer
a cease-fire in support of a peace plan fraying only three weeks after
its launch.
Two
Palestinians were killed Wednesday in an Israeli air strike east of
Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip that injured another 15,
Palestinian medical and security sources said.
Akram
Abu Fahran, 33, was killed when Israeli helicopters fired missiles at
two cars near Khan Yunis, security and medical sources said, Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Fahran
was driving in the car behind one carrying 17-year-old Nevine Abu
Rejilah, who medical sources said also died in the missile strike.
The
sources said another 15 people were wounded in the strike, some
seriously.
"Helicopters
fired several missiles at two cars, killing a man and a woman and
wounding 15 people" a security official told AFP.
Palestinian
medical sources said a dead woman had been transported to Khan Yunis'
Nasser hospital and identified her as Nevine Abu Rejilah, 17, AFP
said.
Sources
from the Palestinian resistance group Hamas said the target of the
strike was a member of its armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades.
The
Israeli army confirmed the raid, saying it was aimed at a car carrying
a group of Ezzedine al-Qassam activists claiming they were on their
way to fire mortar shells and homemade rockets, nicknamed Qassams, at
Israeli territory.
"This
(Hamas) unit is involved in firing Qassam rockets at Israeli
communities," the army said in a statement, pointing out there
has been a significant increase in the firing of Qassams and mortars
by Palestinian militants in the last few months.
Since
the start of the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada against Israeli
occupation at the end of September 2000, more than 140 Qassam rockets
and over 1,700 mortar shells have been fired from the Gaza Strip
towards Israeli targets, the army said.
However,
the attacks, which often fall short of their targets, have not
resulted in the death of any Israelis.
Two
Hamas gunmen killed in clashes with army in northern Gaza Strip
Also
Wednesday, two gunmen from the Islamic movement Hamas were killed
Wednesday in an exchange of fire with the Israeli army in the northern
Gaza Strip, security sources on both sides said.
Hamas'
armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for
"an attack on (Israeli) military barracks in Beit Hanun," in
a statement sent to AFP.
They
said the two activists, who died in the attack, "fired an RPG
(rocket propelled grenade) at a military jeep and then stormed
military barracks ... leaving those inside either dead or
wounded."
Israeli
military sources reported one wounded soldier and said Israeli troops
had returned fire when a group of gunmen "took position in an
abandoned structure in the Beit Hanun area and opened fire."
The
sources said a third had managed to escape.
The
statement by the military group named the two dead gunmen as Eyad
al-Masri and Sayed Abeljawad Muhessein, both 20 years old and from the
refugee camp of Jabalya.
"This
is our first response to the assassination of the martyr leader
Abdullah al-Qawasmeh," said the statement.
