GAZA
CITY, August 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As Palestinians
struggled to rein resistance groups and stop retaliatory attacks against
Israel, Israeli helicopter gun ships fired five missiles into a car in
western Gaza late Sunday, August 24, killing four Palestinians and
wounding five others, few hours after Palestinian security chiefs gave
orders to prevent fighters from firing rockets and mortar bombs at
Israel.
Eyewitnesses
identified two of the men as Wahid al-Hams and Ahmed Shtawi, members of
Ezzedine al-Qassam, Hamas military wing. The two other victims were not
identified, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
vehicle suffered a direct hit, said General Saeb El Ajez, in charge of
national security for Gaza City and the northern sector of the
Palestinian territory.
But
he said that several other people were wounded in the attack not far
from the local offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and taken to
the city's main al-Shifa hospital.
According
to the Palestinian sources quoted by al-Jazeera Satellite channel, two
helicopter gunships fired at least five missiles at the vehicle.
Security
sources were quoted by the Israeli daily Ha’aretz as saying
that the targets of the missile strike were members of the Hamas
military wing.
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Remains
of one of the victims
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Israeli
army chief Moshe Yaalon said earlier Sunday that Israel would hunt down
other activists if the Palestinian Authority failed to crack down on
resistance groups and disarm their members.
The
attack came three days after Israeli helicopters carried out a similar
raid in Gaza that assassinated Hamas senior political leader Ismail Abu
Shanab and two others.
It
also followed the order by the head of the Palestinian public security
for the Gaza Strip earlier in the day to begin shutting down arms
smuggling tunnels near the Gaza-Egypt border and issued orders for their
forces to prevent fighters from firing rockets and mortar bombs at
Israel Sunday.
"General
(Abdelrazak) al-Majaida ordered his services to uphold security
throughout the Gaza Strip and to prevent any public order violation, in
order to preserve Palestinian national interest," the security
services said in a statement received by AFP.
Palestinian
security forces in the Gaza Strip "will no longer tolerate the
firing of Qassam rockets, mortar shells or automatic weapons against
Israeli targets," a Palestinian security official said.
Over
the past two days Palestinian security forces have also sealed off five
tunnels running between the Gaza Strip and Egypt and used to smuggle
arms, but Israel branded the move "smoke and mirrors"
.
