Israeli occupation forces continued demolition of Palestinian houses

Additional Reporting by Yasser Al-Banna, IOL Palestine Correspondent

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, March 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas fighters fired four home-made Palestinian rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel on Sunday, March 9, one day after assassination of a leading figure of the group by Israeli warplanes.

Israeli military sources said that four Qassam rockets, named for the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, caused no damage when they crashed into fields near the southern Israeli town of Sderot, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Initial reports said only two rockets had been fired.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, adding in a statement that its men had returned safely to their bases, despite the ongoing Israeli invasion.

Meanwhile, sixteen Palestinians were wounded in the Gaza Strip Sunday as the Israeli army raided the densely populated territory, Palestinian medics said.

In Beit Lahia in the north, 10 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli troops, who have reoccupied part of the town and the neighboring refugee camp of Jabalya for four straight days.

The clashes broke out after the Israeli army ploughed over crops in the area, Palestinian security sources said.

On the southern border with Egypt, three Palestinians, including a woman and a child, were wounded by shrapnel in the town of Rafah as an Israeli tank shell landed near their home.

And in the refugee camp of Khan Yunis to the north, three Palestinians were wounded. Medics said they had no immediate information on the circumstances.

On Saturday, March 8, evening, two home-made mortars were fired at a Jewish settlement in the Gush Katif bloc in southern Gaza Strip without causing any injuries.

The group said the bombardment is "the first step in the bill the Zionists will have to pay for their crimes against our people, the latest of which was the assassination of a political leader and his three companions."

An Israeli helicopter gunship killed Hamas co-founder Ibrahim Maqadmeh and his bodyguards in an attack in Gaza City, drawing Hamas threats of hits on Israeli political leaders.

The Israeli army re-occupied a buffer zone in the northern end of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, March 7, to hinder the firing of the Qassams, which are unguided Katyusha-style rockets with a range of up to 12 kilometers (eight miles) and carry a 5.5 kilo (11 pound) warhead.

Palestinian officials fear the Israeli army could stage a major reoccupation of the Gaza Strip while world attention is focused on a looming U.S. war on Iraq.

The Palestinian Authority has tried in recent months to curb the firing of the missiles, which cause little serious damage but bring a withering Israeli response, but the firing has continued.

Israel has stepped up its attacks on Palestinian in recent weeks, pushing deeper into the Gaza Strip in a series of bloody raids which have left dozens of Palestinians dead, many of them civilians.

Also Sunday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, speaking at a rally of around 3,000 Hamas supporters in Gaza, reiterated threats against Israeli political leaders in revenge for Maqadmeh's slaying.

"The resistance will strike the Zionist enemy in every place," he said, condemning an "American-Arab-Zionist plot" to end the Palestinian uprising.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz dismissed the threats against political leaders as nothing new.

In retaliation for a Friday bus bombing, Israeli forces destroyed the home of the Palestinian attacker and two other Hamas fighters killed while carrying out resistance attacks in the region on Friday night. In one of the attacks, a U.S.-born Jewish settler rabbi and his wife were killed in their home.

In the north of the re-occupied West Bank, the army also destroyed the house of Mohammed Abu Rob, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad group, the army said in a statement.

Israel has destroyed more than 150 fighters' homes since August 2003 in a bid to deter future attackers, a policy criticized by rights campaigners as collective punishment, as families are left destitute by the demolitions.

Israeli occupation forces also arrested 13 people in the West Bank, eight of them around al-Khalil following a spate of attacks on local Jewish targets.

But an army spokesman said Israel had lifted a total closure of all passages into and out of the West Bank which was imposed Thursday after the bus bombing.

The closure of crossing points between the Gaza Strip and Israel was however maintained.

In another related development, a Palestinian shepherd was killed earlier in the day near the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem when he stumbled on unexploded ordnance which blew up, Palestinian security officials said.

Ribhi Obeid, 50, was killed on the spot by the blast, they said, without specifying whether the device was an unexploded Israeli shell.

Israel has reoccupied the West Bank since last June and has carried out numerous attacks in Tulkarem.

An Israeli soldier was also seriously injured when fire was shot at an Israeli post near Khan Younis, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported, adding that another soldier of Israeli occupation forces was shot and injured at the area within few last hours.