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14 palestinians die in israeli raids in gaza { November 4 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110300240.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110300240.html
At Least 14 Palestinians Die in Israeli Raids
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 4, 2006; A18
JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 -- In airstrikes and ground fighting Friday across the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, in one of the bloodiest days in the territories in months.
A series of Israeli airstrikes Friday night, from the southern Gaza city of Rafah to Beit Lahiya in the north, killed at least nine Palestinians, mostly gunmen. Among the dead were two medics with the Red Crescent Society who were killed when their ambulance was hit in an airstrike, health officials in Gaza said. Israeli military officials said they were investigating the incident.
Two Palestinians, including one civilian, also died during Israeli arrest operations that turned violent in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Nablus.
Earlier in the day, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian women who were among a group of female demonstrators acting as human shields for gunmen trapped inside a Gaza mosque. The women's diversionary tactic enabled scores of gunmen to escape.
The standoff in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun came on the third day of an Israeli military operation there intended to reduce Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel, which continued Friday. At least five rockets landed inside Israel without causing injuries or damage.
The Israeli incursion, the largest in months, has killed at least 31 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them gunmen. More than 100 others have been wounded in street fighting and airstrikes, including 11 women injured during Friday's demonstration at the mosque. Palestinian health officials also reported that Barah Fayad, 4, died Friday of wounds he suffered the previous day.
"This is not an escalation," Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the governing Hamas movement said in a televised statement from Gaza, "but a slaughter approved at the highest Israeli level, against everything Palestinian."
One Israeli soldier was killed in the initial push into Beit Hanoun, an agricultural community of about 28,000 residents in the strip's northeastern corner.
In fighting overnight Thursday, a group of nearly 60 Palestinian gunmen took refuge in al-Nasser Mosque in Beit Hanoun. Israeli troops surrounded the mosque and warned the men inside to surrender.
Israeli military officials said that some of the gunmen surrendered after troops fired tear gas into the mosque. Others responded by firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Israeli soldiers shot back and battered the building with bulldozers.
As dawn broke, Palestinian radio broadcast messages from Hamas's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, calling on women to head to the mosque and serve as human shields for the men inside. Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, runs the Palestinian government.
According to witnesses, about 1,500 women marched to the mosque while another 500 remained in the streets. "We believe that under the cover of these processions, some of the gunmen escaped," an Israeli military spokesman said.
Witnesses said a few of the women carried women's clothing, which some of the gunmen slipped on to blend in with the demonstrators and flee. Soon after, the mosque collapsed from damage caused by Israeli gunfire and bulldozers.
Palestinian health officials said Intisar Ali, 50, died of gunshot wounds. The second woman killed was not immediately identified.
At a news conference in Gaza, officials from the Hamas military wing denied that gunmen used women's clothes to escape, saying they had other "secret ways" of disguising themselves. They said the men were able to escape because the Israeli army was distracted by gunfire from the mosque timed to coincide with the women's arrival.
Israeli military officials said Israeli snipers opened fire on the demonstrators after identifying armed men among them, something that is not clear on video footage that aired on Arab satellite channels throughout the day.
Hamas officials acknowledged that some of the escaping men were armed and that one Hamas gunman was killed.
In another development, former prime minister Ariel Sharon was taken to the intensive care unit of Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv with an infection affecting his heart. Doctors said he was in stable condition.
Sharon, 78, has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke in January.
Special correspondent Islam Abdelkareem in Gaza contributed to this report.
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