An Israeli soldier and seven Palestinians were injured during an Israeli raid into the eastern part of Gaza City before dawn on Tuesday, sources from both sides said.
The Palestinians were hit during a clash with an infantry unit accompanied by some 20 armoured vehicles and with helicopter gunship support, Palestinian witnesses said, according to AFP. Among them were an unspecified number of civilians caught in the crossfire.
The soldier was lightly wounded in the same operation, an Israeli army spokesman said.
This raid comes one day after Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated that one of the goals of the Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip is to bring about the demise of Hamas rule in the coastal territory. According to Haaretz, Barak said that the first priority is to contain the Qassam rocket threat and the smuggling of arms and explosives from Sinai into the Gaza Strip, and then to destabilize Hamas' hold on the territory.
