An Israeli tank incursion into the Gaza Strip early Wednesday killed six Palestinians, on the heels of a deadly attack by Palestinian resistance fighters on a nearby Jewish settlement.
Palestinian officials said six Palestinians, four of
them policemen, were killed when an Israeli tank shell hit their security post near the Palestinian town of Beit Lahiya at the northern end of the Gaza Strip.
TV reports said that eight Palestinian security posts were shelled by Israeli tanks in the Gaza Strip, and that the city of Gaza came under a barrage from Israeli helicopters and warships.
The deaths brought the toll from more than a year's fighting to 850 people, including 656 Palestinians and 171 Israelis, according to AFP count.
Palestinian security officials told the agency that those killed were in a police building which was one of eight destroyed or damaged in the incursion, which pushed around a kilometer (half a mile) into Palestinian-controlled land in northern Gaza.
The building was leveled by tank shells as Israeli heavy armor, supported by combat helicopters, moved into the area on the northern edge of Gaza City.
SETTLEMENT ATTACKED IN GAZA
Two Palestinian gunmen infiltrated the settlement of Alei Sinai settlement late Tuesday, killing two young Israelis - a girl on leave from the army and her boyfriend - and wounding 15 before themselves being shot dead by Israeli special forces.
The commander of the Israeli forces in the sector, General Israel Ziv, said his troops would stay in the land they had occupied after the attack "for the time being."
"This is an operation to ensure the greater safety of the settlements in the sector," he told Israeli public radio.
Israel blamed the Palestinian Authority for the attack.
"This attack is the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli army will take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of civilians and soldiers," cabinet secretary Gideon Saar told the army radio station, quoted by AFP.
"If the Palestinian Authority, which has undertaken to curb terrorist operations, fails to do so, our army will take care of it," he added.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned the raid and said that the attack represented a violation of the ceasefire agreements. Arafat spoke to Palestinian media representatives in Ramallah, according to Haaretz.
The Israeli government has flouted both the Oslo peace accords and international law by settling tens of thousands of its citizens on land conquered from Palestinians in 1967.
Meanwhile, Palestinian police in Bethlehem tried to arrest the head of the armed wing of Fateh movement in the city late on Tuesday.
Palestinian security officials were cited by AFP as saying that Arafat himself had ordered the arrest of Ataf Abayat, who according to Haaretz is suspected of being involved in the killing of Sarit Amrani, a Jewish settler, two weeks ago.
But the police were forced to negotiate with Abayat's armed followers on how he was to give himself up, with a number of supporters reportedly threatening to open fire on the neighboring Jewish settlement of Gilo, AFP said.
In the end, a compromise was reached whereby Abayat signed a police document acknowledging he had been arrested but was not put in prison, officials cited by AFP said.
The local police chief, Colonel Abu Zeid Hadad, was relieved of his duties, the same sources said.
The move appeared to be a sign that Arafat was responding to Israeli and US pressure to crack down on suspected militants.
Israel claims it wants Arafat to uphold his side of a ceasefire agreement signed last week by jailing militants who pose a threat to Israel.
Human rights groups have stated that the occupation forces fire at demonstrators in situations in which their own lives are in no immediate danger.
Amnesty International reported in the first few months of the uprising that Israeli soldiers had shot dead nearly 100 Palestinian children - Albawaba.com
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