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Nimrod is an anti-tank laser-guided missile of 26 km range and pinpoint accuracy. |
GAZA CITY — Israel is using its sophisticated surface-to-surface Nimrod missiles against civilian targets and locals in the ongoing Gaza Strip onslaught, which entered its fifth day in a row on Sunday, November 5.
"The occupation army has fired a barrage of Nimrod missiles at civilian targets in the northern Gaza Strip city of Beit Hanun," a well-kept Palestinian military source told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity.
"They are using this highly destructive weaponry against innocent civilians," he asserted.
Nimrod is an anti-tank laser-guided missile of 26 km range and pinpoint accuracy. It is easily installed on a variety of ground platforms and helicopters.
On land, it provides standoff strike capability against ground point targets such as tanks and bunkers.
Palestinian Health Ministry Spokesman Khaled Rady said 50 children, 63 women and eight men lost their limbs to Israeli missiles.
The five-day Autumn Clouds blitz has so far claimed the lives of 48 Palestinians, including a four-year old, a 12-year old, two teenagers and a 70-year old.
Over 200 people have been wounded in the Israeli operation, according to rescue services.
Many of the some Palestinian victims had completely burned bodies, witnesses had told Al-Jazeera news channel.
Last month, the Italian state television’s satellite channel, RAI News 24 aired field reports from Gaza of inexplicably serious injuries suffered by locals in the open-ended Israeli incursion.
Israel dropped more than a million cluster bombs on south Lebanon in the last few days of the six-week-long when a ceasefire deal was in the offing.
Non-Stop
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| Palestinian women run for cover as an Israeli tank opened fire at them. (Reuters) |
Israel killed Sunday two more Palestinians and vowed to keep up the military offensive open-ended.
A member of the armed wing of the ruling Hamas was shot dead in Beit Hanun and a member of the security forces close to President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party was killed in nearby Beit Lahiya, medics said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the operation would continue for as long as necessary, but that Tel Aviv had no intention of reoccupying the Gaza Strip from which it withdrew last year.
Israeli occupation forces have imposed a siege on Beit Hanun hospital and threatened to bomb it.
Witnesses told IOL that Israel wants to capture wounded resistance fighters in the hospital.
Beit Hanun's Emergency Aid Department urged the international community to provide much needed medicine to patients.
"The Beit Hanun hospital is running out of medicine and is in a dire need for medical equipment and ambulances," it said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by IOL.
It said people are suffering from serious food and water shortage.
"Israel has cut off electricity, plunging Beit Hanun in darkness and destroyed the city's infrastructure, including the drinking water station."
More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the four-month Israeli offensive, about half of them civilians.
Overshadowed by Lebanon war, the Gaza offensive received little publicity in the world’s press.
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