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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| PFLP fighters report mortar fire, gun battles |
| 2009-10-18 |
| Ma'an -- The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed its armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, exchanged gunfire with Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip on Saturday. In a statement, the movement's military wing said its forces injured a soldier east of Al-Bureij refugee camp, and that Israeli forces responded with machine-gun fire. Separately, the group claimed to have launched two 120 millimeter mortar shells at the Zakim military base just outside of Gaza. Approached by Ma'an, a spokeswoman for Israel's military said the army looked into the claims and found both to be baseless. In any event, the Brigades said the purported operations "were in response to the [Israeli] occupation's crimes in the West Bank and Gaza," and added that "our response is still ongoing." The claims of responsibility coincided with the eight-year anniversary of the PFLP's assassination of Israel's ultra right-wing tourism minister, Rehavam Ze'evi, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in East Jerusalem on 17 October 2001. That attack was said to have been in response to Israel's assassination, a month earlier, of Abu Ali Mustapha, the politically leftist Palestinian movement's late leader and armed wing's namesake. Earlier on Saturday, the PFLP wing said its forces fired four mortars toward the Israeli military post of Netiv HaAsara, west of the Erez crossing near the northern Strip, but their statement made no mention of the assassination anniversary. Israel's army said it was unaware of that attack, as well. |
| Posted by:Fred |