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Lull in Gaza ends as Jihad avenges West Bank deaths
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 13 - 03 - 2008

A fragile lull in fighting between Israel
and Palestinian militants in Gaza ended Thursday, as the radical
Islamic Jihad faction retaliated for the killing of five of its
fighters in the West Bank by firing a new barrage of rockets from the
Strip, according to dpa.
After six days of relative calm, the Islamic Jihad launched at
least 16 self-made al-Quds rockets at southern Israel Thursday, in
addition to five mortar shells.
Two of the rockets landed in the Israeli town of Sderot, just
north-east of Gaza.
Israel too launched one airstrike, its first in six days,
targeting a rocket launcher near the northern Gaza town of Beit
Hanoun before dawn which was loaded and had just been made ready for
firing, an Israeli military spokesman said.
"There is no room for calm in the shadow of the continuation of
the occupation crimes," the Islamic Jihad vowed in a statement.
The new violence came after Israeli undercover soldiers in
civilian clothes ambushed four Palestinian militants, among them
Mohammed Shahadeh, the Islamic Jihad's Bethlehem commander, outside a
bakery in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said the Israeli commandos opened
fire at the four, who were armed with semi-automatic rifles and
pistols but had no chance to draw them.
One of the four was a senior militant in the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades, but the three others were all of the Islamic Jihad, and
Israeli officials said their deaths dealt a serious blow to the
radical faction's armed wing in Bethlehem. Another top Islamic Jihad
leader - its Tulkarm commander - was killed in the northern West Bank
earlier Wednesday.
The Israeli military said they were involved in past suicide
bombings in Tel Aviv and elsewhere and had been sought by Israel for
years.
The killings came hours after Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, whose
Islamic militant Hamas movement carried out most rocket attacks
during five days of heavy fighting earlier this month, called for a
"reciprocal, simultaneous and comprehensive" truce with Israel in
both Gaza and the West Bank.
"The decision to agree on a ceasefire is in the hands of Israel,"
he said in an address at Gaza's Islamic University, adding the truce
should also include an end to Israel's stringent economic embargo on
Gaza and a deal that would allow the reopening of its border
crossings.
Both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud
Barak had adamantly denied the existence of a tacit, informal "truce"
understanding with Hamas, despite the clear lull in fighting, which
came after five days of the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in
Gaza in 40 years early this and late last month.
More than 120 Palestinians and 5 Israelis were killed in the
fighting.


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