Israeli aircraft rocketed boats in Gaza City’s harbor early yesterday and missiles hit a house in the center of the strip. No injuries were reported, but several boats anchored in the Gaza marina were destroyed, witnesses said, adding they heard “loud explosions.” The Israeli Army said in a statement that it targeted a vessel used by fighters to smuggle weapons into the strip from Egypt.
No one was injured also in the house rocketed in the central El-Bureij refugee camp, because the home-owner and his family left after receiving an advance warning in a phone call from an Israeli Army officer — a practice used frequently in the past week or two. The airstrikes are part of an Israeli offensive launched after fighters from the governing Palestinian Hamas movement and two other groups raided a military outpost bordering Gaza and captured an Israeli soldier while killing two others.
At least 160 Palestinians have been killed since the offensive began exactly five weeks ago, the Palestinian Health Ministry said yesterday. The deaths included 30 children and youths aged under 16, the youngest of whom was a seven-month-old baby, it said, adding more than 600 others were wounded. An Israeli soldier was also killed. |