Israel raids Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY – Israel sent troops and tanks into the Gaza Strip before dawn yesterday and attacked key targets from the air in a major offensive aimed at freeing a teenage soldier captured by Palestinian fighters.

Much of the Gaza Strip was plunged into darkness after Israeli war planes hit a power station and two bridges in a series of night-time raids aimed at blocking movement across the territory by militants. Flames poured into the night sky from the power plant and the sound of shelling and gunfire from combat helicopters could be heard as ground forces moved into southern Gaza where the missing serviceman was believed to be held.”We are using all forces that we can by land and by air in order to get him home,” Israeli army spokeswoman Noa Meir said of the kidnapped soldier, 19-year-old Gilad Shilat.It was the first major ground offensive against Gaza since Israel pulled settlers and troops from the impoverished coastal strip last year in a highly controversial operation that ended a 38-year occupation.No casualties have so far been reported in the incursion, which followed intensive mediation efforts to free Shilat after his abduction in an attack on Sunday that also killed two Israeli soldiers and two militants.Israel massed thousand of troops on the Gaza border as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out any negotiation with the kidnappers, holding the Hamas-led government and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas responsible for the safety of the serviceman.The offensive followed a landmark agreement on Tuesday between Palestinian factions on an political initiative that implicitly recognises Israel’s right to exist, a historic shift in policy by Hamas which has long advocated the destruction of the Jewish state.Israel dismissed the deal however as an “internal matter”.The situation on the ground was further complicated when a Palestinian militant group claiming to hold the soldier also threatened to kill a Jewish settler it said it had abducted in the occupied West Bank.”Unless the aggression stops, we will kill the settler,” said a representative of the Popular Resistance Committees, which claimed Sunday’s attack along with the armed wing of Hamas and another group.Although there has been no official Israeli confirmation of the settler’s kidnapping, the parents of Eliyahu Oshri reported their son missing after he failed to return home on Monday.The Gaza incursion came amid international appeals for restraint over the soldier’s kidnapping which has triggered the worst Middle East crisis since the militant Islamist movement Hamas took office in March.Egypt, France and the Vatican, as well as the United States, have made efforts to exert pressure on the Palestinians to hand over the soldier.An army spokesman said the operation was “to increase pressure on the Palestinian Authority and on Hamas and the terrorist organisations to release the soldier and also to increase our control to ensure he is not smuggled out of the area since we do have information he is in the southern area of Gaza”.Bracing for the onslaught, Palestinian militants erected earthen mounds across roads and sealed off entrances to refugee camps in parts of Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions on earth.Men, women and children packed into at least a dozen cars and a horse-drawn cart could be seen speeding into Rafah from areas to the east as Israeli troops entered the territory while armed gunmen prowled the streets.- Nampa-AFPFlames poured into the night sky from the power plant and the sound of shelling and gunfire from combat helicopters could be heard as ground forces moved into southern Gaza where the missing serviceman was believed to be held.”We are using all forces that we can by land and by air in order to get him home,” Israeli army spokeswoman Noa Meir said of the kidnapped soldier, 19-year-old Gilad Shilat.It was the first major ground offensive against Gaza since Israel pulled settlers and troops from the impoverished coastal strip last year in a highly controversial operation that ended a 38-year occupation.No casualties have so far been reported in the incursion, which followed intensive mediation efforts to free Shilat after his abduction in an attack on Sunday that also killed two Israeli soldiers and two militants.Israel massed thousand of troops on the Gaza border as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out any negotiation with the kidnappers, holding the Hamas-led government and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas responsible for the safety of the serviceman.The offensive followed a landmark agreement on Tuesday between Palestinian factions on an political initiative that implicitly recognises Israel’s right to exist, a historic shift in policy by Hamas which has long advocated the destruction of the Jewish state.Israel dismissed the deal however as an “internal matter”.The situation on the ground was further complicated when a Palestinian militant group claiming to hold the soldier also threatened to kill a Jewish settler it said it had abducted in the occupied West Bank.”Unless the aggression stops, we will kill the settler,” said a representative of the Popular Resistance Committees, which claimed Sunday’s attack along with the armed wing of Hamas and another group.Although there has been no official Israeli confirmation of the settler’s kidnapping, the parents of Eliyahu Oshri reported their son missing after he failed to return home on Monday.The Gaza incursion came amid international appeals for restraint over the soldier’s kidnapping which has triggered the worst Middle East crisis since the militant Islamist movement Hamas took office in March.Egypt, France and the Vatican, as well as the United States, have made efforts to exert pressure on the Palestinians to hand over the soldier.An army spokesman said the operation was “to increase pressure on the Palestinian Authority and on Hamas and the terrorist organisations to release the soldier and also to increase our control to ensure he is not smuggled out of the area since we do have information he is in the southern area of Gaza”.Bracing for the onslaught, Palestinian militants erected earthen mounds across roads and sealed off entrances to refugee camps in parts of Gaza, one of the most densely populated regions on earth.Men, women and children packed into at least a dozen cars and a horse-drawn cart could be seen speeding into Rafah from areas to the east as Israeli troops entered the territory while armed gunmen prowled the streets.- Nampa-AFP