Gaza / AFP
07/15/2005
Israeli helicopters fired missiles in the north of the Gaza Strip overnight shortly after the death of an Israeli woman in a rocket attack by Palestinian militants, Palestinian security forces said early Friday.
The helicopters fired three missiles at unidentified targets, sources added but did not say whether anybody was hurt in the air strike.
It came after a young Israeli woman was killed after Palestinian militants fired makeshift rockets from the occupied Gaza Strip into southern Israel, according to military sources.
Another Israeli was also lightly wounded in the village of Netiv Haasara, where four devices exploded after being launched from the northern Gaza Strip, the sources added.
An additional four rockets exploded in the Negev region to the west of the occupied Palestinian territory, damaging cars but causing no further victims, the sources added.
The attack came as Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas denounced spiralling violence and arrived in Gaza for crisis talks with armed factions in a bid to rescue a de facto truce two days after a suicide bombing killed five Israelis.
In an apparent response to the escalation of violence, Palestinian police and security forces in the Gaza Strip were placed on a state of alert due to "tension on the ground," a Palestinian interior ministry spokesman said.
Palestinian interior minister Nasr Yussef said that the security forces and police had been "ordered to prevent by force if necessary all firing of rockets and mortars" against Israeli targets.
"We will take the most energetic measures to put an end to this firing and to find a solution," he told reporters following talks with Abbas.
Shortly before the state of alert was implemented, five members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas who were preparing to fire mortars toward Israel were shot and wounded by Palestinian police, witnesses and medical sources said. |
