Five IDF soldiers wounded, five Palestinians killed in Gaza clashes

Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers were wounded yesterday, one of them moderately, and five Palestinians killed, in a series of incidents in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he had instructed the IDF to retaliate with added force following the launching last Thursday of a GRAD Katyusha rocket from Gaza to Ashkelon.

"The Katyusha attack on Ashkelon constitutes a grave escalation in terrorism from the Strip," Olmert said, in the weekly cabinet meeting. He went on to inform the ministers that Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to escalate its retaliation for Qassam fire from the Strip.

Security sources believe the rocket that struck Ashkelon on Thursday, whose firing constituted the extension of the range of threatened areas, was a Russian-made device and did not come from Iran, as previously suggested.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter also addressed the firing of the rocket, telling his colleagues in the cabinet that "during the first few days of 2008, 21 rockets have hit Israel, including the Katyusha that landed 17.5 kilometers into Israel." He added that "it would have taken very little for the people who were treated for shock because a rocket landed near them to have become fatalities.

"The activity of the IDF and the Shin Bet security service in the Gaza Strip is very important, but we need to face the fact that it is not stopping the continuation of the war of attrition against the settlements around the Gaza Strip and Ashkelon. We need to stop that war of attrition at any cost - primarily at the expense of the Palestinians," he said.

The fighting, which ended when the IDF withdrew at nightfall, also wounded at least 34 Palestinians, including four women, seven children and 15 gunmen, according to Palestinian sources. Two of the five Palestinian fatalities were unarmed civilians, the sources added.

One of the Palestinian civilians was killed as troops battled militants near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where the soldiers were operating, Palestinian officials said. Later, a Palestinian woman was killed when a projectile struck a house.

The soldiers were hurt by anti-tank missiles fired by militants in two separate incidents during an operation in Bureij. IDF infantry and armored corps troops entered the camp early Sunday morning, penetrating some 1.5-2 kilometers into Palestinian territory. In the first incident, one soldier was moderately wounded and two others lightly hurt by shrapnel. A short time later, a second missile hit the troops, lightly wounding two soldiers. All five of the soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

Earlier in the day, IDF soldiers killed two armed Palestinians who were seen approaching the troops in a nearby security zone, which is closed to Palestinian movement.

In parallel, an Israel Air Force aircraft targeted a rocket launch site in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, killing one of two armed men spotted there, the IDF said. Palestinian officials identified the dead man as a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group allied with Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers.