Israeli tanks and an army bulldozer entered Palestinian-controlled land Saturday morning and demolished a Palestinian border force post, security officials said, cited by AFP.
The nearby Gaza International Airport, near the border with Egypt, came under heavy fire in the attack, suffering bullet damage, the officials said.
After firing tank shells and machine-gun fire at the security post for more than four hours through the night, four tanks rolled about 300 meters into the southern Gaza Strip around 6:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) where a bulldozer demolished the border post, said southern Gaza Strip border force commander Jaber al-Ghneimi.
The tanks rolled a further 100 meters past the border post in a heavy exchange of gunfire with retreating Palestinian border forces before withdrawing to Israeli territory, Ghneimi said.
The border post was positioned around 300 meters from Gaza International Airport in Rafah, said the agency.
It was the third Palestinian security post to be destroyed in incursions by the Israeli army in a week.
A security post was destroyed near the Sufa border crossing near Rafah on Wednesday morning, and another was razed Tuesday night before the Israeli army withdrew from a 24-hour occupation of the Beit Hanun region in north Gaza.
Palestinians Call For Quick UN Response to Israeli 'Aggression'
Palestinian leaders called Friday for quick action by the UN Security Council to prevent more Israeli "aggression" in the region, said AFP.
"The danger of an extension of Israeli aggression lingers and the Security Council must therefore urgently adopt a resolution imposing on Israel the application of Resolutions 242, 338 and 425," said a statement issued after the Palestinian leadership's weekly meeting, chaired by President Yasser Arafat.
Resolutions 242 and 338 call for Israel to withdraw from territories it captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, while Resolution 425 calls on it to withdraw from Lebanon.
The Palestinian leadership, with included both the cabinet and the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, also reiterated a call for "international protection for the Palestinian people," said the statement, cited by the agency.
A Security Council resolution to send observers to the territories was blocked last month by the United States, which used its veto power for the first time in four years.
16 PALESTINIANS INJURED IN CALSHES WITH ISRAELI TROOPS FRIDAY
Sixteen Palestinians including a television journalist were wounded Friday by Israeli bullets in incidents around the occupied territories, medical sources said.
In the Gaza Strip, eight young Palestinians were injured by Israeli live rounds in a clash at the Karni crossing point with Israel in a clash, medical sources said, said AFP.
Earlier, Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian journalist working with Abu Dhabi satellite television as she was covering damage caused by recent Israeli raids on the southern Gaza Strip, according to hospital sources.
Layla Awda was in a "moderate" condition after being shot in the thigh by a live bullet in the Rafah area near the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, they said.
An Israeli army spokesman said Awda was caught in the crossfire.
"The army is conducting a thorough review of the circumstances behind this incident and expresses its regrets for the journalist's injury," a spokesman said in a statement.
"Journalists put themselves in peril by being among the Palestinian rioters and amid gunfights," he said.
In Abu Dhabi, the network accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists. Layala told her station that she was a target for Israeli soldiers, brushing off the Israeli claims.
An investigation was underway, Israeli sources were quoted by the TV as saying.
Another journalist working for Palestinian television, Mona Akawi, was shot at on Thursday near the Netzarim Jewish settlement south of Gaza City, but the bullet tore her clothing without injuring her, AFP said.
Also in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Israeli army said it defused a major explosive device Friday morning that had been placed by the Kfar Darom settlement.
In the West Bank, four Palestinians were lightly wounded by rubber bullets in Ramallah, where Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones at them, the hospital sources told the agency.
Another dozen demonstrators suffered minor illnesses from tear gas fired by the soldiers at the clash, which followed a demonstration by some 1,000 demonstrators.
The protesters had marched to an Israeli checkpoint from downtown Ramallah, waving Palestinian flags, chanting slogans in support of the half-year-old Palestinian uprising and burning posters representing Israeli settlements and prisons.
South of Ramallah, two Palestinians were injured by live rounds in a clash with Israeli troops at the Kalandia refugee camp, according to medical sources.
A military spokesman confirmed the incident but denied the army used live rounds.
Another Palestinian was injured by Israeli army fire in a clash between soldiers and young Palestinians in the divided West Bank town of Hebron, witnesses were quoted by the agency as saying.
PALESTINIANS DOWNPLAY ISRAEL'S MOVE TO EASE BLOCKADES
Palestinians have said that the Israeli moves Friday to lift roadblocks imposed on Gaza are meant as propaganda and directing the world's attention off their actual practices in the Palestinian lands, according to Al Jazeera satellite channel.
Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had ordered the army to lift blockades that had effectively cut Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip into three sections, disconnected from each other - after ordering Gaza's main roads cut on Monday in reprisal for mortar fire on Sderot.
Haaretz said that roadblocks that had split Gaza into three parts were lifted at Martyrs' Junction (Netzarim) and on the Gush Katif-Kisufim road. The cuts had barred travel from the north of Gaza into the center and southern portions of the strip.
Meanwhile, the Israeli security cabinet approved at its meeting on Thursday Ben-Eliezer's proposal - which he said was based on lessons learned from the controversial Beit Hanoun incursion earlier this week - to conduct "smart and quiet pinpoint" operations inside Palestinian controlled Area A territories.
Ben-Eliezer explained his proposal by saying that Israel has not given up its policy of no longer regarding the Area A delineation as a barrier to actions against mortar attacks. But future army actions will carry a "small signature," and will not include large-scale troop movements, he said.
The idea is to avoid the kind of operations that get widespread television coverage and are interpreted as Israeli invasions of Palestinian Authority (PA) territory - as happened in the recent Beit Hanoun operation, which was harshly condemned by Washington, said Haaretz.
SHARON REJECTS ARAFAT'S OFFER FOR JOINT TV CALL AGAINST VIOLENCE
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Friday rejected as "insufficient" a proposal by Arafat that both leaders deliver public statements calling for a halt to the violence and a renewal of the negotiations, reported Haaretz.
Arafat transmitted his proposal to Sharon via the US congressional allocations committee delegation, headed by Arizona Republican Senator Jim Colby, which is visiting the region.
The delegation arrived in Jerusalem from Ramallah, and its members told Sharon about the message from Arafat, who said: "I am prepared to make a declaration now. Sharon and I will go together to the television."
In response, Sharon said: "the solution is not in making declarations. I do not need declarations from Arafat. ... The chairman must order his forces and take practical steps to halt the violence, terror and incitement," the paper quoted him as saying.
Sharon explained that he is demanding a complete halt to the violence, because if he demands only a reduction in the violence, there will be a basis for bargaining.
"If we demand a complete halt, we will get a significant reduction."
Sharon told the visiting members of Congress that Israel would conduct negotiations with the PA only after "a halt to the violence and terror and shooting of mortar shells, which is initiated and directed by the organizations and security forces completely under Arafat's control." - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
