Three Palestinians, including a 75-year-old woman, were killed in Israeli gunfire in Gaza yesterday, a day after the coastal strip suffered one of the deadliest days since the start of a massive Israeli offensive a month ago. The woman was killed when an artillery shell slammed into her home near the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, hospital officials said. In addition, a 16-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man were killed east of Gaza City. Nineteen other Palestinians were wounded. On Wednesday, the Israeli military killed 24 Palestinians.In Rome, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that the release of an Israeli soldier captured in Gaza could be “imminent.”
“With regard to the issue of the captured Israeli soldier, I have reiterated that there are ongoing efforts that lead us to believe in an imminent solution,” Abbas said after a meeting with Italian Premier Romano Prodi. However, sources close to the Hamas-led government denied that the release was “imminent.”
An Israeli Army spokesman said Israeli air and ground forces have been operating over the past two days in the neighborhood of Sejaiya in eastern Gaza City to search for what he called “terror infrastructure.” Palestinian security forces said that “Israeli tanks had entered areas east of the densely-populated Jabaliya refugee camp and were also spotted some 1,500 meters inside the territory and Sejaiya.”