Israeli forces killed six Palestinians, including a policeman and injured dozens of people in a series of air strikes and gun battles that erupted in northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, security sources and witnesses said. According to Reuters, Israeli infantry troops backed by armoured forces entered northern Gaza Strip before dawn and gun battles ensued, followed by the air strikes, witnesses said.
One air strike killed a Palestinian policeman and in the clashes 23 people were injured, including civilians, among them a woman in a critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head, security sources said.
A second air strike killed a Palestinian, 23, and a fighter from Hamas movement, who also served as a cabinet member's bodyguard, died from his injuries after one of the clashes, doctors said. It took hours for ambulances to reach some casualties due to the intensity of the gunfire, witnesses said.
A fourth fatality was a civilian.
Palestinian hospital officials said that the death toll could rise because occupation forces were blocking access to a building where an undetermined number of additional wounded were located.
Hamas said an Israeli soldier also was killed in the operation.
Hamas Movement has unequivocally blamed the American administration for the Israeli carnage, charging that Washington's blessing of the Israeli plans to invade the densely populated Strip served as a justification for them to commit the heinous carnage.
Spokesman of Hamas Dr. Ismail Redwan affirmed that American sanctioning of the IOF brutality against the Palestinian people provided the umbrella for the Istraeli troops to carry out the massacre in Beit Hanun.
"We view with absolute concern the American connivance with the Israeli occupation government in killing the Palestinian people amidst an unexplainable world's silence vis-א-vis those heinous crimes", a statement issued by the Movement said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli security cabinet convened Wednesday to discuss the situation in Gaza Strip and plans for expanding the Israeli offensive operations there.
Separately, dozens of Israeli armoured vehicles massed at Israel's border with southern Gaza Strip late on Tuesday. A military official broke into local radio stations to urge Palestinians to evacuate an area of Rafah, near the frontier with Egypt, witnesses said.
