GAZA CITY, 8 November 2006 — Israeli troops moved out of Beit Hanoun yesterday leaving a trail of destruction and killing eight people across Gaza.
The Israeli Army withdrew yesterday morning after a six-day offensive that claimed the lives of 64 people. Soldiers departed from the town the military charged had become a launch-pad for rocket attacks against Israel, repositioning elsewhere in the northern Gaza Strip and leaving behind scenes of destruction.
“We withdrew our forces from Beit Hanoun after having completed our mission,” a military spokesman confirmed after daybreak. Roads were left gouged out. Homes, two mosques and a school were destroyed. The historic old town was pockmarked with bullet holes and shell craters, electricity pylons ripped from the ground and sewage spewing in the streets. Residents picking their way through the wreckage mourned their “martyrs,” eyes red with fatigue, filled with hate and tears, an AFP reporter said.
In Gaza for crunch talks with the Hamas-led Cabinet on forming a unity government, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel’s attacks, charging that Palestinian blood was no guarantee of its state’s security.
“If Israel wants peace and security, the path of Palestinian blood is not the one to be followed,” Abbas told AFP.
“The Israelis announced that they had left Beit Hanoun and we thought they had finished, but unfortunately they’ve begun again,” he added.
“This proves Israel is determined to continue its aggression not only in Beit Hanoun but in the entire Gaza Strip.” Three members of Palestinian groups and a woman were among the eight killed yesterday in a string of incidents in which Israeli troops opened fire.
Two of those killed were from Islamic Jihad group and a third from the military wing of Hamas.
A woman, Nahla Shanti, and Abdel Majid Ghirbawi were killed when a shell struck the home of Hamas lawmaker Jamileh Al-Shanti where the two were staying.
The army said it returned fire after militants fired two rocket-propelled grenades at its forces in the area. Two other Palestinians were also killed by Israeli fire north of Gaza City.
An Israeli military spokesman said forces “identified hitting 10 gunmen” after six incidents in which gunmen approached the army or troops came under attack in northern Gaza as well as one airstrike on a militant cell.
The six-day reoccupation of Beit Hanoun failed to halt rocket fire, with some 40 rockets landing in Israel since the start of Operation Autumn Clouds.
Two more rockets fired from Gaza fell hit Sderot yesterday, without causing casualties, the mayor of the southern Israeli town said on the radio. An army spokesman said troops had seized a large amount of weaponry, including rocket launchers, anti-tank missile launchers and grenades.
Dozens of Palestinians “suspected of terror involvement” were taken for questioning, he said.
The incursion, the latest in four months of Israeli activity in Gaza in which more than 300 Palestinians have been killed since a soldier was captured in late June, was condemned by the international community.
Israeli officials have repeatedly vowed that they have no intention of permanently reoccupying Gaza, from which the Jewish state withdrew troops and settlers last year after a 38-year occupation. In all, 64 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a week, including more than 50 and one Israeli soldier who died during Autumn Clouds.
Despite the bloodshed, Abbas held talks with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on a unity Cabinet.
Abbas has tried in vain for months to persuade the party to agree to a moderate platform acceptable to the international community in order to lift a crushing economic and political boycott of the Palestinian territories.
In Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem expressed support for a Palestinian unity government after talks with Khaled Meshaal, the hard-line exiled leader of Hamas, the official Sana news agency reported.
