Israeli forces backed by armored and engineering units
entered the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza late Monday night
searching for metal workshops that produce Kassam rockets.
Heavy exchanges of gunfire erupted between soldiers and armed
Palestinians. Soldiers took up positions on the rooftops of
houses as others swept the area for suspects.
On Tuesday morning the Palestinians reportedly implemented an
elaborate ambush they had set up for an Israeli armored
personnel carrier (APC). One account says that they fired an
antitank missile that caused the APC to stop right where they
had planted a bomb, and then they set off the explosion. Six
soldiers were killed, Hy"d. The terrorists filmed the
entire affair, and afterwards abused the dead bodies.
The armored personnel carrier contained explosives that were
to be used to demolish the weapons factories. The forces were
on their way out of the area after the operation had been
announced over, when the device was detonated. As a result of
the large explosion, parts of the carrier were spread over a
wide area. The IDF reported difficulties in evacuating the
dead.
The military wings of Islamic Jihad and Hamas claimed
responsibility for the terror.
Reinforcements were being sent into the area and the army
divided the Gaza Strip into three sections to stop militants
from moving around.
Two Kassam rockets were fired at a town in the western Negev
on Tuesday morning but both failed to explode.
The operation began when Israeli undercover forces sped into
Zeitoun in civilian taxis and jeeps, the witnesses said. They
were later joined by tanks and armored personnel carriers as
helicopters fired their machine guns and loud explosions
echoed across Gaza City. As many as 20 workshops were said to
have been destroyed, according to the IDF.
The IDF operation is part of ongoing operations conducted by
the IDF in the Gaza Strip to damage the terrorist
infrastructure, which began after the killings of Hamas
leaders Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdul Aziz
Rantissi.
In another part of Gaza, several IDF tanks and bulldozers
entered the Rafah refugee camp on the Egyptian border and
tore down a structure, residents said.
