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Deadliest israeli strike since hamas elections kills 6 Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-07T224551Z_01_L0778401_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-VIOLENCE.xmlhttp://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-07T224551Z_01_L0778401_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-VIOLENCE.xml
Israeli air strike in Gaza kills 6
Fri Apr 7, 2006 6:46 PM ET
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed six Palestinians including a senior militant commander and his young son at a militant training base in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, witnesses and medics said.
It was the deadliest Israeli air raid in five months.
At least 12 people were wounded in the missile strikes that targeted a car as it was leaving the base, medics said. Apart from the boy, all the dead were militants from the Popular Resistance Committees and most were in the vehicle.
The Israeli army said a car carrying several "terrorists" was hit as it left the base near the town of Rafah on the border with Egypt.
"The vehicle was coming out of a training camp in which both training and weapons training were being conducted," an Israeli army spokesman said.
Militants named the senior commander as Eyad Abu Al-ein of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group of militants that often fires makeshift rockets into Israel.
Medics said his son, 5, was killed. They had earlier said his 7-year-old daughter had been killed. But later the family identified the dismembered body as the son, medics added.
Abu Al-ein, also a bomb maker, had brought his daughter and son to watch training exercises at the base. It was still not clear if the daughter was among the wounded.
The armed wing of Hamas, an Islamic militant group that took over the Palestinian government last week after winning parliamentary elections in January, warned of quick retaliation. Hamas's armed wing has largely abided by a year-old truce and kept a lid on its rhetoric in recent months.
"The Palestinian resistance with all its factions will not stand handcuffed against these crimes ... The coming days will prove the truthfulness of our promises and the enemy should watch and wait," it said in a statement.
A second car outside the training base was damaged in the strikes but not badly. Most of the wounded were militants.
Witnesses said Israeli aircraft fired three missiles.
The Israeli army spokesman said the military identified hitting one vehicle and not two, and was also checking reports of civilian casualties.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh condemned the air strikes after holding previously scheduled late-night talks in Gaza to discuss a row over government powers.
The two leaders said no agreement was reached over the dispute and that a committee had been formed to find a solution.
Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, has been angered by Abbas's decisions this week to assume control of Gaza's border crossings and make a high-level security appointment.
The president's moves underscored tension between Hamas and Abbas's long-dominant Fatah movement, which was trounced by the militant group in the January elections.
Israel says it has the right to strike at militants it says are planning attacks on the Jewish state.
It has stepped up air strikes and artillery barrages into Gaza in recent days in response to regular rocket fire from Gaza, which Israel withdrew from last year after 38 years of occupation. The makeshift rockets rarely cause any casualties.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem)
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