At least one Islamic Jihad activist from Jenin was killed in a firefight with Israeli soldiers on Tuesday. According to Israeli media reports, the man, Marwah Kamil, was the local leader of Islamic Jihad in the area, but Palestinian sources denied the report, saying the dead man was another figher. According to the Islamic Jihad, the victim was 25 year old Nasser El-Zakarna. Israel asid two Palestinians were killed. Two other Palestinians were wounded.
An Israeli soldier suffered a shrapnel wound during the clash.
Elsewhere, on the Egyptian border Tuesday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian. According to Israeli media, Israeli soldiers spotted a man running from the Egyptian side of Rafah to the Palestinian side before shooting him to death.
Later in the day, two hothouse workers were killed and six others were lightly injured in a mortar shell attack at hothouses in the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of Gush Katif. One of the workers killed in the Ganei Tal settlement was Palestinian and the other was Chinese. The others were Palestinian.
Earlier, at least two Qassam rockets hit the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Tuesday, causing damage to a residential apartment. A woman and her two children were taken to a nearby hospital and treated for shock, Israeli press reports have indicated.
The rockets were launched from the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip at approximately 7 a.m. A statement from Hamas said that the armed wing "would like to declare to the whole world that any tampering with the sanctity of the Aqsa Mosque would mean an open-ended, ferocious war on all areas of occupied Palestine with all means and potentials available.”
“We affirm that our weapons would remain directed at the occupiers as long as one inch of our homeland remained under occupation,” the communiquי added.
Meanwhile, Israel has reportedly offered the Palestinian Authority a rail line linking the Gaza Strip and West Bank that would enable passage between the two areas after the "disengagement" plan is executed. Based on the proposal, the tracks would run from the Erez checkpoint in the northern part of the Gaza Strip to the Tarqumiya crossing near the West Bank city of Hebron, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
