Israel battered the Gaza Strip with more air strikes on Tuesday as the government gave the green light to intensify the offensive that has killed more than 50 Palestinians in a week. A Palestinian security officer was killed and six people were wounded in the latest Israeli air strikes hitting northern Gaza, medical sources said. The dead man was named as Ahmed Shahid.
Medics said he was struck by a missile fired towards a car. The army said the attack targeted a vehicle used to get to a rocket-launch site and loaded with rockets in the Beit Hanun area. The air raids — which the Israeli military said targeted rockets and a "cell about to launch them" — came just one day after nine Palestinians died from Israeli fire elsewhere in the impoverished and radicalised Gaza Strip. |