Three Palestinians, one of them an Islamic Jihad activist, were injured in clashes with Israeli troops during an incursion in the southern Gaza Strip. The operative, Ziad Abu Saada, 23, sustained serious injuries as the Israeli forces surrounded a house in the Khazaa area east of Khan Yunis, medical and security sources said Saturday.
Two civilian bystanders were also wounded by Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Saturday of "one-sided" policies that have punished the Palestinian people and their elected government. Haniyeh, in a column in Britain's Guardian newspaper ahead of Blair's visit to the region, said there were signs that "the British public is unhappy about what Blair's government has been doing to our people."
"The problem has been the unquestioning attachment of Tony Blair's government to the Clinton and then Bush administrations, which have seen the Middle East through Israeli eyes only," Haniyeh wrote.
