The death toll in an Israeli raid on the Gaza Strip on Thursday rose to nine after Israeli helicopters launched three missiles at a site belonging to Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades killing 25-year-old Atallah Qishta, a Fatah member detained by Hamas, and injuring four others, one seriously.
This brings the death toll since Thursday morning to nine. The number of those injured also rose to 50.
One hour earlier, another member of the Hamas military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades activist 23-year-old Yasser Hillis, was killed when Israeli warplanes targeted the Ash-Shuja’iyyah neighbourhood in Gaza City.
Before these attacks a Palestinian woman, her daughter and two sons, and another activist affiliated to Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades were killed in an Israeli incursion in the town of Bani Suhaila, south of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
The body of combatant Barham Abu Lihya, in his twenties, was also discovered after the Israeli forces withdrew from the area later on Thursday afternoon.
Palestinian medical sources said that Karima Fayyad and her sons Ahmad and Sami, and her daughter Asma were killed when Israeli artillery fired missiles at the family’s home.
The rest of the family were wounded in the attack and medics are trying to free them from under the debris of the ruined house.
Early on Thursday afternoon the body of Muhammad Fayyad, believed to be the father of the family, was pulled from the wreckage of their home.
A baby from the same family is clinically dead but is on a life support machine.
A Palestinian fighter affiliated to the Al-Qassam Brigades, twenty-year-old Muneer Barham was also killed when Israeli forces invaded the town of Bani Suhayla in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Eyewitnesses told reporters that Israeli warplanes and artillery launched seven missiles at Palestinian combatants as they clashed with the invading forces, which penetrated three kilometres into the area.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Israeli forces stormed Rafedia Hospital and besieged other hospitals in Nablus on Thursday morning in a major incursion into the northern West Bank city, just 24 hours after Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and his Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, had visited the volatile city.
More than 70 Israeli military vehicles entered Nablus from all directions, declaring the old city of Nablus a closed military zone preventing citizens’ and medical staff from entering the area.
Israeli forces arrested four Palestinians – twenty-year-old Ahmad Dhoqan, from Balata refugee camp, thirty-year-old Rami Al-Qadi, also from Balata, twenty-year-old Mahir Mabruka, from the old city of Nablus and sixteen-year-old Ayid Abdul-Rahim, from the village of Zuwata, west of Nablus.
Israeli officials said that the invading Israeli forces wounded a Palestinian militant in the Al-Qaysariyya neighbourhood of the old city, before storming Rafedia Hospital and confiscating the weapons belonging to the hospital’s security guards.
Then they besieged other hospitals in Nablus looking for the wounded fighter.
The number of Palestinians injured later rose to 24.
Amongst those was the distributor of Al-Quds daily newspaper 43-year-old Mamduh Abdul-Haq.
Two other citizens were injured near the eastern graveyard.
They were named as 23-year-old Mahir Talih, who received a gunshot to the head, and 16-year-old Khalid Al-’Amudi, who was slightly injured.
Twenty others sustained different injuries ranging from the effects of tear gas to being hit by rubber bullets.
Witnesses said that the invading Israeli troops attacked Palestinian medics and ambulances with live ammunition and rubber bullets.
One medic, Ahmad Jibril, received a rubber bullet to his back, while medics Diya’ Balbisi and Tariq As-Sabuh were both wounded by Israeli gunfire.
Israeli soldiers arrested two other medics, Khalid Ba’ara and Sa’id Al-Masri.
The director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Service Dr Ghassan Hamdan accused Israeli forces of preventing his attempts to evacuate injured people, adding that an Israeli military jeep deliberately hit his car.
The governor of Nablus, Dr Jamal Muhaisin said that the Israeli incursion was meant to frustrate the Palestinian plan to maintain security in Nablus.
He described the military operation as unjustified, especially after the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades decided to halt its military activity at the request of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In a separate development, during the celebrations of the 43rd anniversary of the establishment of Fatah in Ramallah in the central West Bank, the movement reiterated Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ invitation to Hamas to resume nationalist dialogue.
Tens of thousands of Fatah supporters took part in the celebration held in the yard of the Muqata’a presidential compound in Ramallah.
Fatah leader Ahmad Qurei, who is currently heading the Palestinian negotiation team for peace talks with Israel delivered a speech on behalf of the Fatah movement.
He called upon the Palestinian factions to endeavour to restore the legitimate and inalienable Palestinian rights accredited by international agreements.
Qurei also criticised Hamas practices and described their military takeover of the Gaza Strip in June as a ‘black coup’.
He said: The coup in the Gaza Strip is a temporary situation which will come to an end regardless of all the conspiracies.’
Qurei also called for agreement on a date for new legislative and presidential elections.
Hamas on Thursday called on President Mahmud Abbas of rival Fatah to stop meeting Israeli officials and return for dialogue with the Islamic movement.
Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told reporters in Gaza: ‘Hamas still extends its hands to our brothers in Ramallah and President Abu Mazen (Abbas).
‘We call on Abbas to start a new era and stop the useless security meetings with the Zionist entity and to come to the dialogue on the basis of maintaining the Palestinian people’s interest.’
A few days ago, Hamas rejected a call by Abbas for a new era based on ending the movement’s control of the Gaza Strip and staging early elections.
Hamas said it wants unconditional dialogue with Fatah before relinquishing its grip on Gaza.
