The IDF continues Operation Hot Winter with air strikes on n. and c. Gaza (targeting alleged weapons stores and factories) and gunfire across the border into n. Gaza. Senior Hamas cmdr. Eyad al-Ashram (assassinated in Jabaliya) and 2 Palestinian civilians (including 1 child) are killed and around 45 Palestinians (including 10 children, 5 women) are wounded. Palestinians fire 13 rockets fr. Gaza into Israel, hitting a house, lightly injuring 1 Israeli; 1 rocket lands inside Gaza, hitting a home, killing a 3-yr.-old Palestinian boy and wounding 2 other children. Five Palestinians are wounded when a rocket they are preparing to launch into Israel explodes prematurely. A Palestinian wounded in Israeli attacks on 2/28 dies. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts late-night arrest raids, house searches nr. Bethlehem; fires rubbercoated steel bullets, percussion grenades, tear gas at Palestinian, Israeli, international activists taking part in the weekly nonviolent demonstration against the separation wall in Bil‘in (10s suffer from tear gas inhalation). Hamas-affiliated police break into a Fatah-affiliated youth club in Nussayrat r.c., confiscating documents and furniture. (BBC, WP, YA 2/29; NYT, WP 3/1; PCHR 3/6)
Friday, February 29, 2008