The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for a bomb
attack on an Israeli tank near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip today.
A statement issued in the name of the group’s military wing said: "We were able on Monday morning to blow up a Zionist tank that usually escorted military convoys and convoys of settlers".
An Israeli official said one Israeli soldier had been seriously wounded. The Hamas statement showed pictures of the tank before and after the attack and said the operation in which the tank was completely destroyed had also been filmed.
"Our operation comes within our response to the ugly massacres by the monstrous entity against our unarmed people and especially the kidnapping of a Palestinian girl in Beir Naballah and as a last warning to the herds of settlers", the statement continued.
Israeli undercover soldiers have arrested a student suspected of being the woman who used an Internet chat room to lure an Israeli teenager to his death last week.
Hamas opposes Palestinian-Israeli peace deals and has claimed responsibility in the past for a series of suicide attacks that killed scores of Israelis.