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An Israeli army artillery cannon fires towards the Gaza Strip. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 9, 2006 |
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Israel rebuffed a cease-fire call from the Palestinian premier while leaving behind a wide path of destruction in northern Gaza and pounding militants in Gaza City with airstrikes, insisting on freedom for a captured soldier and an end to rocket fire before it calls off its invasion.
Israeli forces pulled back from northern Gaza on Saturday but crept closer to Gaza City. Palestinian casualties mounted, including a mother and two children killed in a blast in their house. Palestinians blamed Israel.
The army said the initial inquiry had found that the air force had fired missile at a group of militants, and hit them but nothing else. However, the army said it was still investigating the incident. Palestinians said the missile hit a house, killing a mother and two of her children, including a 6-year-old girl. Four other family members were wounded.
The force of the blast tore open one of the house's outer walls. The courtyard outside was stained with blood, and a pool of blood collected near the front door.
Six-year-old Rawan Hajaj was carried inside a Gaza City hospital, wrapped in a red blanket. The back of her head was sheared open, and her legs dangled lifelessly. Her mother, Amona, and 20-year-old brother Mohammed were also killed, and six other people were wounded.
As Israel's largest military operation since pulling out of Gaza entered its 11th day Sunday, Israeli aircraft targeted a group of Islamic Jihad militants in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of western Gaza City, wounding four, one seriously, Palestinian hospital officials said. The military said it targeted armed militants.
A few minutes later, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a bridge in northern Gaza, collapsing it, also knocking out a power transformer serving the town of Beit Hanoun, witnesses said. The military said it hit the bridge to stop transfer of rockets. The airstrike followed Israel's pullout from northern Gaza after an intensive two-day sweep.
Before sunrise Sunday, Palestinian gunmen in Shajaiyeh exchanged fire with Israeli troops near the closed Karni cargo crossing, where soldiers took over an abandoned Palestinian factory, witnesses said. Two Islamic Jihad militants were wounded, they said.
Israeli troops invaded the Gaza Strip three days after Hamas militants captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid June 25 and have been battering the coastal strip with heavy artillery barrages and airstrikes.
Most of the 44 Palestinians who have died in the offensive were gunmen. More than 160 Palestinians have been wounded, hospital officials said. An Israeli soldier also was killed.
On Saturday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged Israel to halt its offensive, release Palestinian prisoners and resume indirect talks about the captured soldier through international mediators. But it did not offer to free Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19.
"We want to activate this initiative to bring the region out of this whirlpool of blood," Haniyeh said while touring Beit Lahiya, the hardest-hit Palestinian town.
Hamas often sends out conflicting signals, however, in part because of divisions between a more militant leadership in Syria and more pragmatic politicians in Gaza. Israel has accused the Hamas political chief, Syrian-based Khaled Mashaal, of ordering the soldier's capture.
Aides to Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would not accept a truce until Shalit was freed. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said rocket attacks must also stop first.
Shalit was captured June 25 by militants who tunneled into southern Israel from Gaza and attacked a military post. Israel launched its invasion three days later.
Earlier Saturday, Israel pulled its tanks out of the town of Beit Lahiya, leaving a wide swath of destruction after trying to carve out a buffer zone against rockets there. Tanks driving through its narrow streets had shorn off outer walls of buildings, torn down electricity poles and chopped up asphalt. Bullet holes pocked building facades, and bulldozers had torn up fields, knocking down trees and greenhouses.
Israeli troops also left nearby Beit Hanoun and three Jewish settlements in northern Gaza that Israel abandoned nearly a year ago when it unilaterally withdrew from the territory.
On Sunday morning, Israeli soldiers were in position only at the defunct airport just across from the Israeli border in southern Gaza and in the Gaza City-Karni area, the military said.
Capt. Jacob Dallal, an army spokesman, said troops repositioned Saturday because they had accomplished their objectives in northern Gaza -- drawing militants into direct combat.
"We much prefer to engage these people with the army as opposed to having these people fire rockets at schools in Ashkelon and Sderot," he said, referring to two southern Israeli cities that have come under militant rocket fire.
The AP contributed to this report.
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