Thursday, April 7, 2011

Three people die in attack on Israel

An anti-tank missile fired from Gaza hit the Israeli school bus Thursday, injuring two people, while Israel forces retaliated by bombing in the area killing three people, Palestinian medics said. A teenager on board the bus was seriously injured and at least eight people including a girl of four years, left with minor injuries in the densely populated Gaza Strip after the Israeli response.

The offensive included tanks, fighter planes and assault helicopters. An Israeli aircraft F-16 fighter bombed one of the most important security compound of the Islamist group Hamas that governs Gaza, shaking the city with a huge explosion and wounding at least one person. The Israeli army said 45 rockets and mortars were fired at Israeli territory from Gaza for three hours, the biggest attack in two weeks.

There were no immediate reports of Israeli casualties as a result of the offensive. In the first combat known since Israel launched a system built to defend against cross-border rocket and missile attacks, the so-called "Iron Dome", an interceptor missile destroyed a rocket fired from Gaza towards Ashkelon city .

An Israeli helicopter gunship attacked a target in Gaza for the first time since the war in January 2009 and fired a missile into some white in the center of the coastal territory. The machine gun fire from a helicopter killed a garbage collector 17 years after an attack from the abandoned airport in the enclave, doctors said, and a 50 year old man died after shots were fired from a tank.

Palestinian sources said that militants fired on the spot the back of a helicopter with a heavy machine gun. The spokesman of the Israel Police, Mickey Rosenfeld said the wounded in the attack on the bus were being treated at the scene. Meanwhile, the head of the ambulance service, Magen David Adom, Israel Radio said that helicopters transported to hospital the most seriously injured.

Adom said the army had confirmed that the bus was hit by an antitank missile while carrying students to school. A video shows the explosion seriously damaged the vehicle, especially the rear, the windows were destroyed. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement saying he had ordered the military to "take all necessary measures quickly and respond to the attack," adding that Israel blames Hamas for all events taking place in the enclave .

The missile strike gives then a relative calm on the border between Gaza and Israel, after a surge of violence last month, where at least 16 Palestinians were killed. Israel and Hamas had indicated their willingness to return to a de facto ceasefire, the border has remained relatively quiet since late December 2008 to January 2009, a period when there was war in Gaza.

No comments:

Post a Comment