| Israeli Apache helicopters and F-16s blasted a mosque compound and security targets in Gaza City. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the radical Hamas movement, was praying inside a Gaza City mosque, but escaped unscathed when two missiles hit the compound's front, Palestinian security sources said. Israeli troops also reoccupied a section of the Khan Yunis camp in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israeli army said the incursion was only temporary. In Ramallah, rocket strikes sent clouds of flames and smoke in the air over a ruined police station close to the centre of the town, which has been partly re-occupied by Israeli tanks. Large parts of Ramallah were plunged into darkness after the raid. In Jenin to the north, US-made Apaches blasted a building of Arafat's Fatah movement. The IDF confirmed it hit a Palestinian police post and a Force 17 unit -- Arafat's elite guard -- in Gaza as well as a police post in Ramallah and an office of Arafat's Fatah movement in Jenin. |