Palestinian fighters fired four mortar shells at a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip early Friday, causing no casualties, according to a military source quoted by AFP.
The mortars fell on open land near greenhouses at the Shlav settlement in the Gush Katif settlement area.
The Israeli army did not retaliate, in line with their latest orders, the source said.
Elsewhere overnight Thursday, an Israeli civilian car was fired on in the southern part of the West Bank. No one was reported injured.
Meanwhile, Haaretz reported that the Israeli army’s presence in the West Bank would be beefed up by several special forces units in order to improve security on the roads, per a general staff decision on Thursday.
Some of the teams will operate undercover, lying in ambush for Palestinian attackers, while others will be high-profile, demonstrating a presence on the roads. The decision was approved by Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said the paper.
The occupation troops are also preparing for a possible decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to launch a new offensive in the territories if the Palestinians do not respond soon to his unilateral ceasefire, it added.
Senior army officers were quoted as saying that that the ceasefire was merely an "operational halt" in an ongoing war -- essentially a breathing space designed to let both sides regroup before the next battle. They also expressed fear that following the deaths of four settlers this week, the danger of a revenge attack by settlers had grown.
In a report to Ben-Eliezer Thursday, the army noted that 18 Israelis were killed in the territories this month. Since the conflict began, only November registered a worse toll, with 32 Israelis killed.
Since the outbreak of the Intifada on September 29, 2000, 94 Israelis (including two foreign workers from Romania) have been killed: 61 civilians and 33 soldiers. In the last two months, however, almost all the deaths have been among civilians. Even the two soldiers who died were killed in drive-by shootings rather than in the course of army operations.
In addition to the deaths, 696 Israelis have been wounded since the start of the Intifada, according to the report.
Over 14,180 Palestinians had been injured in clashes with Israeli troops and settlers as of May 24, according to data gathered by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs.
In the same time period, according to Reuters, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 448 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
