Israel Air Force hits Hamas, Fatah targets in Gaza Strip



Israel rejects demand to release 1,000 prisoners, end Gaza operation



By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service



Israel rejected a demand Saturday by three Palestinian militant groups holding abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, that it free 1,000 security prisoners being held in its jails and end its offensive in Gaza.



A statement released overnight Friday by the three groups did not say explicitly that the Israel Defense Forces soldier they captured six days ago, Corporal Gilad Shalit, 19, would be released in return. But a spokesman for the military wing of the governing Hamas party, one of the three factions involved in the kidnapping, said the demands specified in the statement were in fact conditions for freeing Shalit.



Repeating Israel's refusal to bargain for Shalit's release, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said in response to the statement that "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reiterated that there will be no deals, that either Shalit will be released or we will act to bring about his release."





Israeli troops entered the southern Gaza Strip in the early hours of Wednesday, in a bid to pressure the Palestinians to release Corporal Gilad Shalit, abducted Sunday from a position near the Gaza border.



Saturday's call for releasing prisoners was the second statement by the groups since Shalit was abducted in a cross-border raid Sunday morning. "We are declaring to the public our just and humanitarian demands," the statement said.



The statement repeated an earlier demand for the release of women prisoners and minors in exchange for information on Shalit, but made the added request for Israel to free 1,000 "Palestinian, Arab and Muslim prisoners."



It said these would have to include all Palestinian faction leaders as well as humanitarian cases.



The statement cast doubt on hopes voiced by mediators that Shalit could be freed soon.



"In spite of the good efforts of the mediators who tried in silence to speed up the treatment of this humanitarian matter, the enemy and their political leadership are still under the pressure of the security and military command," it said.



"The escalation and arrogance mean the enemy will be responsible for the bad consequences," it said.



Strikes across Gaza

Meanwhile, the Israel Air Force attacked several sites late Friday and early Saturday in the latest round of raids across the Gaza Strip. There were no casualties in any of the incidents, Palestinian medical workers said.



The attacks were on what the IDF called a "terrorist training facility" in the south of the Strip, and on a building in Gaza City which Palestinians said was used by Hamas militants.



The military confirmed attacking a Hamas facility in Gaza and a former Israeli settlement near Rafah, close to the Egyptian border, which was abandoned in last year's Israeli withdrawal and taken over by militants.



Palestinians said the new occupants, activists of the Abu Rish Brigades,

loosely affiliated with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, recently evacuated the complex, fearing just such a strike.



The military could not confirm reports of a missile landing on open ground near the southern town of Khan Yunis.



Also early Saturday, IAF aircraft reportedly hit a Hamas training facility in central Gaza. There were no injuries, but the building was set on fire, Palestinian officials said. The IDF said it was looking into the claim.



Earlier Friday evening, three Palestinians were hurt in an IAF strike in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said. According to witnesses, an IAF missile was fired and landed adjacent to a vehicle in Gaza City.



The IDF said the strike targeted an Islamic Jihad Qassam rocket-launching cell. Palestinian sources said four militants were in the vehicle at the time of the strike. Three managed to flee.



Qassam lands hundreds of meters from Ashkelon

Also Friday, a Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed within hundreds of meters of Ashkelon, in what police said was the closest a Qassam strike has come to the southern city.



Police confirmed that the rocket was an improved version of the Qassam. No injuries were reported in the incident.



Early Friday, the IAF struck the Palestinian Interior Ministry in downtown Gaza City, Palestinian witnesses said, setting it on fire. There was no word of casualties.



The Interior Ministry is nominally in charge of Palestinian security forces, though Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas removed most of its authority.



The IDF confirmed its planes hit the office of Interior Minister Saeed Siyam, which it called "a meeting place to plan and direct terror activity."



A Palestinian militant injured in the strike died of his wounds early Friday, the first fatality in the IDF incursion in Gaza, hospital officials said. The local leader of Islamic Jihad, Mohammed Abdel Al, 25, had been seriously wounded in an air strike in Rafah in southern Gaza.



Three Fatah militants said they were wounded early Friday in a gun battle with IDF forces in northern Gaza, while the army denied troops had entered or fired into the territory, where forces have been massing.



Palestinian hospital officials said a 5-year-old girl was wounded in an air strike in northern Gaza early Friday. Doctors said her condition was not serious.



On Thursday night, IDF artillery shells hit the electricity distribution network in the northern Gaza Strip, plunging parts of the area into darkness.



Palestinian officials said two power transformers were struck, and two security officers were wounded by shrapnel. Dr. Ali Mousa, director of the Abu Yousef al-Najar Hospital in Rafah, also said a 15-year-old boy was moderately wounded by shrapnel in the blast.

The strike came two days after IAF aircraft attacked a major Gaza City power station, reportedly leaving roughly two-thirds of Gaza's 1.3 million residents without electricity.



The IDF confirmed it had been firing artillery at open spaces in the area at the time of Thursday's incident. The army said it has a report of an electrical pole being hit and was checking if the artillery fire was in any way related.



According to information gleaned by the Palestinian Authority, Shalit is being held in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza. Peretz said Thursday afternoon that the IDF would sustain its blockade on the Gaza Strip until Shalit is brought home safely.



Militants killed in Nablus

In the West Bank, IDF troops Friday shot and killed two Palestinian militants during a fierce gunbattle in a Nablus cemetery, Palestinian security officials said.



The soldiers surrounded the cemetery, trapping four militants inside. Initially, two of the militants were arrested, one fled and one was killed, the security officials said. The militants belong to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is tied to Fatah.



A military source said shooting broke out when troops entered Nablus on a raid to arrest militants. The troops fired back, killing the first militant, the IDF said. The second militant was killed in a exchange of fire which pursued after he had already been arrested by troops.



haaretz.com