BEIT HANUN — Israeli tank shells killed 18 Palestinians, including 8 children and 6 women, at a cluster of houses here today, igniting a fury that threatened a steep escalation in violence, with a Hamas leader calling for retaliation against Israel. “Nothing happened,” mumbled 5-year-old Isra Athamnah, pocked with shrapnel wounds and in shock. The news that her widowed mother, Sanaa, 35, was dead, and she was now an orphan, did not sink in. Others described how a tank shell hit a home in this northern Gaza town, sending scores of sleeping members of the extended Athamnah family outside before dawn. The next volleys struck them as they crowded in a narrow alley between the houses, dismembering several among the dead, whose ages ranged from less than a year to 70, witnesses said. “What can I tell you about Maisa now?” cried out an elderly woman, apparently referring to a dead granddaughter. “All I could see was parts of bodies — a head here, brains on the other side.”
| Hamas’s military wing also said in a statement that the United States should be taught “hard lessons” for supporting Israel. The threat, if vague, marked an unusual escalation for Hamas, an Islamic-based militant group that has pointedly portrayed its fight as being against Israel alone. It was immediately disavowed by Ghazi Hamad, the spokesman for the Hamas-led government in Gaza. |
Hamas’s military wing also said in a statement that the United States should be taught “hard lessons” for supporting Israel. The threat, if vague, marked an unusual escalation for Hamas, an Islamic-based militant group that has pointedly portrayed its fight as being against Israel alone. It was immediately disavowed by Ghazi Hamad, the spokesman for the Hamas-led government in Gaza.
The Israelis had just pulled out of Beit Hanun on Tuesday morning after a six-day operation in which they occupied the town and fought battles with militants, many of them from Hamas. Killed were at least 52 Palestinians, including 22 believed to be civilians, and one Israeli soldier. Israel said the operation was aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket fire into nearby Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon. Nonetheless, 13 rockets were fired into Israel today, according to the army.
Israeli leaders, already on the defensive over the war against Hezbollah and the more than 300 Palestinians killed in operations in Gaza since the summer, issued immediate statements of regret. Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered a halt to artillery attacks in the densely populated Gaza strip and an immediate investigation into the incident.
The military said it had launched “preventative” artillery shelling near the area, in response to some 10 Qassam rockets fired in the previous 24 hours. The Israeli notion is that shelling open areas will deter Palestinian militants from firing rockets from there, even though the deterrence is not clear and the shells are not uniformly accurate. In this case, the military said in a statement, initial reports showed rounds landing “at a location distant from the one reportedly hit.”
