The IDF makes an air strike on a police post in Khan Yunis, killing 7 Hamas-affiliated policemen, wounding 1; makes an incursion into al-Shuka, searching homes, exchanging fire with local gunmen, killing 2 armed Palestinians, arresting 40 Palestinians; fires across the border toward Palestinian homes and agricultural areas in al-Qarara, damaging several homes but causing no injuries; sends armored vehicles, bulldozers into the Erez industrial zone to level land. Palestinians fire 8 rockets fr. Gaza into Israel, hitting a factory and a home, injuring 4 Israelis. In the West Bank, the IDF conducts major arrest raids, house searches in Hebron (detaining 30 Palestinians, including 3 journalists) in connection with the 2/4 bombing; also conducts arrest raids, house searches in and around East Jerusalem, nr. Ramallah, and in Nablus, Nur al-Shams r.c. nr. Tulkarm, Qabatya, Silwad. PA teachers and health workers begin a 2-day strike to protest new PA restrictions on obtaining government services such as ID cards, birth certificates. In Gaza City, unidentified assailants blow up the jeep of a mbr. of the Hamas-affiliated internal security service, damaging 2 other vehicles but causing no injuries. (HA, MA, NYT, OCHA, WP, WT, YA 2/6; PCHR 2/7)
Tuesday, February 5, 2008