Dozens of Palestinian gunmen swarmed to Beit Hanun to engage IDF units that raided the northern Gaza Strip village Tuesday night in the latest bid to strike at the Kassam rocket infrastructure in the area. After a day of fierce battles, an IDF soldier and at least 10 gunmen were killed but rockets continued to fall inside the Green Line. St.-Sgt. Kiril Golenshin, 21, a dog-handler in the crack "Sting" canine unit from Moshav Shekef in the Negev, was killed before dawn when gunmen opened fire on troops as they navigated the narrow alleyways of the village, IDF officials said. Golenshin was shot in the head and was evacuated quickly, but died soon afterwards.
Despite IDF action in Beit Hanun, northern Gaza Kassam rocket squads still managed to fire nine of their crude rockets at communities in the western Negev. Army sources said the missiles were fired four kilometers to the south.
| Two of the rockets fell inside Sderot - one near a warehouse inside the industrial area, and the second on a playground in the city's center - spraying shrapnel that lightly wounded a young boy. |
The operation, described by the army as the largest strike against Hamas since reentering the Gaza Strip four months ago, began just after midnight when tanks and armored engineering units surrounded the village. In firefights throughout the day, IDF soldiers killed 10 gunmen and identified hits on at least 60 others, an IDF spokesman in the Southern Command said. IDF troops uncovered a weapons cache in one home consisting of rifles, ammunition, and optical equipment.
| Palestinian hospital officials also reported that at least 44 people were wounded Wednesday. Most were gunmen, but a woman and an 11-year-old boy were also hurt. |
Abbas's office issued a statement condemning Israel's operation in Beit Hanun and urging the international community to take action to halt it.
| A spokesman for Hamas's military wing, Abu Obeidah, advised residents of Sderot to flee. "Staying there is going to put their lives in danger. The rockets are not going to stop." |
Speaking at a press conference at the Gaza Command earlier Wednesday, Peretz said: "No one can put an absolute stop to Kassam fire, but that doesn't mean we have to remain helpless. We won't let these [terrorist organizations] grow stronger." Peretz added that the public debate on whether the IDF should reoccupy areas of the coastal strip could "hamper" the army's operational capability.
IDF spokeswoman Capt. Avital Leibovitz said Beit Hanun was targeted because 300 rockets had been fired from the town since the beginning of the year, out of a total of 800 launched from Gaza. A report in Ma'ariv on Wednesday cited IDF officers who said tactics had been changed following the "Hizbullah-lization" of Hamas's military wing in Gaza. The officers said they learned lessons from what happened in southern Lebanon - where Hizbullah cells targeted Israeli armored divisions with advanced anti-tank missiles and huge land mines.