Three Palestinians, including a woman, killed by Israeli army in central Gaza

Monday January 07, 2008 00:49

by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC&Agencies

Palestinian medics reported on Sunday that three Palestinian residents including a woman and a teen, have been killed by Israeli gunshots in the central Gaza Strip refugee camp of Buraij in a new Israeli attack on the coastal territory.

Palestinian woman Eman Hamdan, another man Ahmad Khalaf, 29, and yet unknown teen, 14, have been identified as victims of Israeli gunfire on the aL-Buraij refugee camp, where Israeli army actions have been unabated since the early hours of Sunday, medics said.

The sources added that at least 50 others have been wounded by gun shots, warplanes' rockets and tanks' shells.

Among those wounded was Rawhiya Hamadan, a relative of killed Eman Hamadan, whose house has been shelled by an Israeli tank missile, as well as eight others in critical conditions, sources at the aL-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in middle Gaza, confirmed.

The sources added that most of the deadly injuries, received by the hospital, sustained burns in all over the bodies.

Earlier in the day, Ziyad Abu Rokba, a 17-year-old youth, was announced dead in the camp and three others injured, as the Israeli bulldozers, backed by a column of tanks, began razing Palestinian-owned arable lands.

Meanwhile, Israeli media sources said that two Israeli soldiers have been slightly injured following a trade of gun fire with Palestinians.

The Israeli army said that such an action on Buraij came to distance Palestinian resistance groups from the border fence with Israel, which is close to the Palestinian-owned lands.

Last week, Israeli army attacks on the coastal Strip claimed the lives of 11 people including a four-member family; a mother, her two sons and her daughter, as Palestinian death toll, due to such actions, is on the rise.

Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, announced Sunday his army will further strike Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, in what Israel says a ' bid to stop homemade shells fire' onto nearby Israeli areas.

In September19, 2007, Israel declared Gaza a 'hostile entity', and began in October a series of measures, branded as ' collective punishment policy' by international human rights groups.

Gazas is currently suffering a sharp shortage of fuel supplies cut, which has drastically impacted the population's civil life, with prolonged hours of power outages and minimum use of gas and petrol.

In June2007, Israel placed Gaza's 1.5-million-storng population under a crippling closure of travel and commercial crossings, with high unemployment and poverty rates, as more than 90 percent of industrial facilities closed.