Israelis Blow Up Family’s Home to Punish Bomber
The Israeli army today blew up the Gaza Strip home of a family of 13 in a punishment staged before foreign journalists to gain maximum publicity.
The explosion destroyed the modest home of cinder-block and corrugated iron where Bassam Shaaban Makussi lived with his parents, grandmother and nine brothers and sisters.
Makussi, 19, headed a small group said by neighbors to belong to the Hamas Islamic fundamentalist movement. The army said his group was responsible for half a dozen gasoline bomb attacks against Israeli troops near Gaza.
He was arrested in April, is awaiting trial and has confessed to the attacks, which caused no casualties, the army said.
The operation took place as Israeli troops in the occupied territories shot and wounded at least seven Arab protesters. The body of a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel was discovered in Nablus.
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