News in Brief

Eight IDF soldiers wounded over holiday

Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded over the holiday, one moderately and the rest lightly, when troops from the Haruv infantry battalion came under attack from explosive devices as they entered the Nablus casbah. The soldiers were unable to identify the source and did not open fire. The injured were taken to hospitals in Israel. Another Haruv detachment came under similar attack in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, but there were no casualties. The soldiers opened fire and reported hitting an armed Palestinian. In another incident, a Haruv soldier had his nose broken when he tried to break up a brawl among Palestinians waiting at the Hawara checkpoint at the southern exit from Nablus. A Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Saturday landed south of Ashkelon, damaging a main road but causing no casualties. Another three rockets landed within the Gaza Strip. The Israel Air Force bombed a building in Rafah beneath which a tunnel had reportedly been dug. (Amos Harel)

Families of kidnapped IDF soldiers' mark Rosh Hashanah in private

The families of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers marked the Rosh Hashanah holiday privately. Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, said: "We knew Gilad would not be with us on the holiday, and we had no expectations or illusions. We were home for the holiday and I prefer for this to remain a private matter." He added that he had received no report in recent days of progress in talks over his son's release, and that he would not be taking any steps in coming days that would be of interest to the media. Representatives of the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev returned Friday from New York, where they participated in a mass anti-terror demonstration and attended Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's address to the United Nations General Assembly. (Jack Khoury)