Mideast - AFP
North Gaza communities march against Beit Hanun occupation
Date: Fri, Jul 30, 2004
GAZA CITY (AFP) - More than 1,000 Palestinians took to the streets of two northern Gaza communities, heeding the call of radical groups to protest against Israel's month-long occupation of the neighboring town of Beit Hanun, an AFP reporter witnessed.
"We refuse the occupation of Beit Hanun," local Hamas leader Fathi Hamad told the angry crowd gathered in the refugee camp of Jabalya.
"We demand that (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon withdraw his forces from Beit Hanun. Our fighters will terminate your colonization," he said before the marchers dispersed quietly.
Hundreds of residents participated in a similar march in Beit Lahya organized by Hamas' smaller rival, Islamic Jihad.
The crowd angrily called for military operations against Israel.
Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader, said Israel must "lift its siege and end its occupation."
Israel took over Beit Hanun on June 29 in a bid to prevent militants from firing rockets across the border into southern Israel after a strike killed two people in Sderot.
The Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) has declared Beit Hanun a "disaster area" and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has organized food deliveries to the besieged community.
Despite the heavy army presence, the firing of makeshift rockets continued unabated. No fewer than four rockets landed in Sderot early Friday but there were no reports of casualties.
"Two rockets fell in an open field near Sderot in the early morning hours, and another two rockets landed in the town of Sderot later Friday morning," an army spokesman told AFP.
"The second set of rockets caused five people to be treated for shock. The first rockets did not cause any damage," he added.
A statement by the hardline Hamas group claimed the first rocket attack, saying it would continue firing rockets "at the Zionist enemy as long as Beit Hanun is occupied."
Beit Hanun residents occasionally protest at the firing of rockets, and anti-Israeli attacks in general, as they typically lead to harsh and collective army punishment, including home demolitions and the leveling of agricultural fields and orange groves.
A Palestinian teenager was gunned down by militants last week, and his father was wounded, when they confronted militants who were trying to plant a roadside bomb on a road used by military patrols.
Meanwhile in the southern Gaza Strip (news - web sites), a 14-year-old girl was critically wounded by Israeli gunfire on Friday in the refugee camp of Rafah, medics told AFP.
Iman Barhum's family said she was hit in the head as she was standing on their front porch.
An Israeli army spokesman said there had only been one incident on Friday, "in the sector south of the town of Rafah when an army patrol came under fire from an anti-tank shell, to which it replied with warning shots in the air".
In nearby Khan Yunis, Israeli troops fired at a funeral procession attended by several thousand Palestinians, killing a 15-year-old boy and wounding five mourners, a Palestinian security source said.
The funeral was of two radical militants killed in an Israeli missile strike the previous day.
Mourners cried for vengeance against Israel, which admitted to killing the head of the Aburish group, Amer Abu Sitteh, and his number two Zaki Abu Zarqa.
The faction is a small armed group which mainly consists of dissidents from the mainstream Fatah (news - web sites) movement of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) and has its stronghold in the southern Gaza Strip.
In the central Gaza Strip, the army said troops had opened fire at Palestinian militants who were attempting to plant an explosive charge along the security fence with Israel.
The troops hit their target, they said, but they could not establish whether there had been any casualties.
The incident took place north of the community of Breij at dawn.
Palestinian eyewitnesses and medics said two people, including one member of the radical Islamic Jihad group, were moderately wounded by gunfire at the same spot Friday morning.
But they did not know whether the four were trying to plant a roadside bomb.
SOURCE
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