ISRAEL: The Israeli army continued its policy of targeting strongholds of the militant Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip yesterday, making yet another foray, this time into the El Bureij refugee camp. Eight Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and two teenage boys, were killed in the course of the raid, and one of the founders of Hamas was captured.
Shortly after midnight yesterday, soldiers backed by tanks moved into El Bureij, where they demolished four homes, including that of Mohammed Taha (65), who helped found Hamas as a political movement in the mid-1980s.
The army seized Mr Taha and several of his sons, who are also senior Hamas members, at their home. The military said that hand grenades were thrown from the Tahas' home and that soldiers returned fire, injuring Mr Taha and one of his sons.
The pregnant woman was killed when her home collapsed on her after troops demolished a nearby building.
Doctors said five of the dead were gunmen killed when fierce street battles erupted as troops thrust into El Bureij. They said the two boys killed were aged 14 and 16.
Hamas, which has carried out many of the suicide bombings in Israel - all of which have been launched from the West Bank - vowed revenge.
"Israel will pay a high price for its crimes," said Mr Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a senior member of the movement's political wing.
Retaliation was not long in coming. Toward afternoon, militants fired four rockets from northern Gaza at the southern Israeli town of Sderot. The rockets - rudimentary weapons developed by Hamas - landed in open areas. Several residents were treated for shock but no one was physically injured.
A spokesman for the army, Maj Sharon Feingold, described Mr Taha as "one of the most senior Hamas activists and terrorists", adding that the raid was meant to send "a clear message to the terrorists that. . . there's a price to be paid."
While Israel reoccupied most of the West Bank in a massive military offensive a year ago, following a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, the army has refrained from invading the densely populated Strip, where it expects resistance to be more fierce, and the close-quarter conditions it will encounter more daunting.
Instead, the military has begun launching daily raids into Gaza in a bid to target Hamas strongholds. Since four Israeli soldiers were killed when a bomb blew up under their tank in the Strip last month, the army has launched more than a dozen raids like the one in El Bureij yesterday. More than 44 Palestinians, most of them Hamas gunmen, and at least eight civilians, have been killed in these operations.
A young man died near the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday evening when he bled to death after being shot by troops. Palestinians said the man was shot after he tried to skirt an army roadblock.