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Palestinians look at the body of Hamas commander Amar Moshtaha at the morgue of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Nov. 3, 2006. Moshtaha was killed with two other militants when an Israeli army helicopter fired a missile at their car in Gaza early Friday, Palestinian official said. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners November 3, 2006 |
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| AP |
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Israeli forces opened fire Friday on a group of women who streamed to a Gaza mosque to serve as human shields for members of rockets squads and gunmen holed up there, killing one and wounding 10, Palestinian officials and witnesses said.
The IDF has since seized control of the mosque. Some of the gunmen inside have been injured, while others have surrendered. The raid was part of an intensified effort to prevent rocket fire from Gaza on Sderot and other Israeli border communities.
A 22-year-old Palestinian man was also killed in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, which troops seized Wednesday in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israeli communities. More than 20 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed since the offensive began.
The standoff at the mosque became the focus of the fighting in the town when gunmen fleeing troops -- estimates ranged from one dozen to several dozen -- sought refuge there, and Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers quickly surrounded the building, the military and Palestinian security officials said.
As the two sides engaged exchanged sporadic fire Friday morning, a Hamas radio station broadcast a call to women to go to Beit Hanoun to shield the militants. Dozens of women left their homes to hurry to the mosque, and en route, came under Israeli fire, witnesses and officials said.
One woman, about 40, was shot dead, and 10 others were wounded, they said.
The army said troops spotted two militants hiding in the crowd of women and opened fire, hitting the two.
The IDF said on Friday that they suspected that Palestinian gunmen had dressed up as women in order to foil the army's attempts to gain access to the mosque in Gaza where Palestinian operatives were holed up inside, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Hamas radio station in Gaza broadcast a call to northern Gaza women to go to the mosque to serve as human shields for the operatives inside.
By mid-morning Friday, the military said a large group of women protesters had gathered outside the mosque. An unidentified number of militants escaped the building while the demonstration was going on, but some remained inside, the army and Hamas said.
Throughout the night, the two sides exchanged fire. Troops also threw stun and smoke grenades to pressure the gunmen to surrender. Witnesses said an Israeli army bulldozer knocked down an outer wall of the mosque.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties inside.
Elsewhere in Beit Hanoun, Israeli troops lowered their visibility, after two days of fierce fighting in which helicopters, tanks and ground troops pressed the military's biggest operation in months against rocket squads.
No airstrikes were reported, and residents said infantrymen had stopped patrolling the streets. Tanks and armored personnel vehicles were in sight, however, and snipers were positioned on about two dozen rooftops.
The army said it targeted Beit Hanoun because it was a major staging ground for rocket attacks. But Israeli officials have said the takeover of Beit Hanoun was expected to last only a few days and did not signal the start of a wider-scale military offensive in Gaza.
Militants have been undeterred by the offensive, however, and continued to fire rockets at Israeli border communities, including two that landed on Friday. Two Israelis were slightly wounded and a house was damaged in the latest attacks.
At a Hamas rally in Gaza City on Thursday night, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas called the Israeli operation "terrorism."
In a separate operation Thursday, an Israeli airstrike on a car in Gaza City killed three Hamas fighters, including a local militant commander, witnesses said. An army spokeswoman confirmed the strike.
The incursion into Beit Hanoun was launched as Abbas, a moderate, tried to form a new government with Hamas. A top Abbas aide said Thursday that the Palestinian president would seek new elections if talks do not produce results in about two weeks.
Abbas has been trying to end a punishing aid cutoff by setting up a government acceptable to the West, either in a power-sharing arrangement between Hamas and his Fatah movement, or by appointing independent professionals agreeable to the ruling party. Hamas has balked at demands that it recognize Israel, however, and no solution to the deadlock has emerged.
Independent legislator Mustafa Barghouti, who has been shuttling between the two sides, said Thursday that an agreement on a new government is close, but he would not disclose details. "We have made good progress. We are almost there," Barghouti said after meeting with Haniyeh.
In other news:
Israeli troops opened fire at two Palestinians preparing a car bomb in the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday morning, killing one and wounding another, the military said.
Palestinian officials identified the wounded man as a senior militant from a violent faction affiliated with the military wing of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party and the dead man as his teenage brother.
Israeli troops arrested a Palestinian Cabinet minister in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Friday, Palestinian security officials said.
The officials identified him as Public Works and Housing Minister Abdel Rahman Zidan of the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party. Dozens of other Hamas ministers and lawmakers have been arrested in previous Israeli sweeps after Hamas-linked militants killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third in a cross-border raid on June 25.
The Israeli army said only that it arrested a Hamas activist.
The AP contributed to this report.
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