KEREM SHALOM: Two Israeli soldiers were killed and one was missing after a brazen Palestinian militant assault on an army post on the Gaza Strip border Sunday that also left two Palestinian fighters dead.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit on Sunday condemned an attack against an Israeli army post near Gaza which killed two Israeli soldiers and left two Palestinian fighters dead. The (escalation of violence) will have negative effects on all parties, Abul-Gheit said in a statement, calling on Israel to stop taking any steps that will further complicate the situation. Abul-Gheit called on the Palestinian Authority to take the necessary measures to control the groups who undertake such attacks. It is important in the coming phase for both sides to take steps to restore calm and trust between each other, which will contribute to both sides returning to the negotiating table and the resumption of the peace process, said Abul-Gheit. The foreign minister added that Egypt was conducting intense communication with both the Israeli and the Palestinian side as well as the United States, to calm the situation.
It was worst violence in the volatile border area since Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip last summer, ending a 38-year occupation of the tiny Palestinian territory. Israeli tanks and troops, backed by combat helicopters, rolled into the Gaza Strip after the early morning attack and were searching for the missing soldier who was feared kidnapped by the fighters. Another four soldiers were wounded.
The Gaza-Egypt border was closed to passage on Sunday following the attacks.
The European observers who oversee the Rafah international border informed the Palestinians they would not be opening the border Sunday because they cannot go into Gaza from Kerem Shalom, the crossing used by the monitors to get from Israel to Gaza, Palestinian officials said.
The Rafah border, Gaza s only gateway to the world, has been closed for much of the past four days due to an Israeli security alert that Palestinian militants were planning an attack in the area.
Several Palestinian armed groups claimed responsibility for the attack on the post near the area of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, including the Popular Resistance Committees and the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades. The PRC said it carried out the strike to avenge the targeted killing of its leader by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip earlier this month. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he held Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas government responsible. Israel sees the Palestinian Authority, headed by Abu Mazen (Abbas) and the Palestinian government responsible for this incident, Olmert told the weekly cabinet meeting. Justice Minister Haim Ramon warned: We will take out anyone involved in terror no matter which movement he belongs to. Abbas office in turn condemned the attack. We have always warned against the danger of certain groups or factions leaving the national consensus and carrying out operations for which the Palestinian people will always have to pay the price, it said in a statement. Israeli tanks and armored vehicles crossed into the Gaza Strip near Kerem Shalom and combat helicopters fired into Palestinian areas after militants attacked the post with anti-tank rockets and explosives. The tanks entered a few hundred meters [into the Gaza Strip] firing shells and sound bombs and supported by Apache helicopters, a Palestinian security source said. Israeli army chief Dan Halutz held an urgent meeting with top brass to weigh the military response and their recommendations will be presented to Olmert later in the day. Hamas, which does not recognize the Jewish state and is boycotted by Israel and the West as a terrorist group, earlier this month launched a series of rocket attacks on Israel, ending a truce agreed 18 months earlier. The Gaza violence came as Hamas and Fatah were engaged in talks aimed at halting a deadly power struggle, with Abbas seeking an agreement on an initiative that implicitly recognizes Israel. About seven or eight Palestinian militants reached the army post through a tunnel and fired anti-tank rockets at an Israeli unit protecting the Kerem Shalom crossing point, a military source said. The militants tossed hand grenades into one tank, killing an officer and the soldier and seriously wounding one. At the same time, Palestinians fired a salvo of homemade rockets from the northern Gaza Strip against neighboring Israeli areas. Members of the nearby Kibbutz Kerem Shalom were ordered to remain in their houses as exchanges of fire continued. A spokesman for the PRC said it had carried out a major, complicated joint operation with the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades and a previously unknown group calling itself the Army of Islam. The two dead Palestinians were named as Mohammed Salwana, a member of the Army of Islam, and Hamed Al-Rantissi, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, a PRC spokesman said. Spokesman Abu Mujahid said the attack was to avenge the targeted killing of PRC leader Jamal Abu Samhadana in Rafah on June 8. According to army radio, Israel also ordered Palestinian security forces positioned along the so-called Philadelphi route which runs along Gaza s border with Egypt to leave the area immediately. The latest confirmed deaths bring to 5,121 the number of people killed since the start of the intifada in September 2000, most of them Palestinians, according to an AFP toll. AFP
