| Submit your comments on this article |
| Middle East |
| Israeli Tanks Thrust Into Gaza Strip |
| 2002-08-06 |
| A column of 30 Israeli tanks pushed into the Gaza Strip with heavy machineguns blazing early on Wednesday and advanced to the edge of a Palestinian refugee camp outside Gaza City. The incursion underlined the serious obstacles to peace that remain after Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed this week and Washington announced high-level meetings with Palestinians in a new attempt to end Middle East violence. Tanks'll do that... Palestinian witnesses said tanks swept into the fenced-in Gaza Strip under cover of darkness, entered the village of Beit Lahiya and moved to the outskirts of the Jabalya refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian militants. They said tanks fired machineguns as they pushed one mile into the northern Gaza Strip but faced mostly light resistance from Palestinian gunmen. Hospital sources said two men were wounded by Israeli fire, one critically with a gunshot to the head. Yup. Those head shots can be pretty critical... Mohammed al-Masri, mayor of Beit Lahiya, said Israeli forces had surrounded his village and were conducting house to house searches. "We're under siege," he told Reuters. The Israeli army had no immediate comment. 'Course, the tanks kinda said it all... Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had been bracing for an Israeli response after a suicide bomber from the Islamic militant group Hamas killed nine people on a bus in northern Israel on Sunday. Gaza's where they keep the head thugs. Sure hope they go after the head thugs... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |