The World - News from June 8, 1989
The Israeli army blew up the Gaza Strip home of a family of 13 in a punishment staged before foreign journalists to gain maximum publicity. The explosion in Beit Lahiya destroyed the modest cinderblock and corrugated-iron home where Bassam Makussi lived with his parents, grandmother and nine brothers and sisters. Makussi, 19, headed a small group that the army says was responsible for half a dozen gasoline bomb attacks against Israeli troops near Gaza. He is awaiting trial and has confessed to the attacks, which caused no casualties, the army said. Meanwhile, Israeli troops in the occupied territories shot and wounded at least seven Arab demonstrators, and the body of a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel was discovered in Nablus.
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