Israeli Tank Attack Kills 4 Palestinians Near Settlement in Gaza

Four Palestinians were killed and four others were wounded early today when Israeli tank shells landed in a Bedouin encampment near an Israeli settlement, residents and doctors said.

The shelling in the village of Sheik Iljeen came after Israeli tanks entered Palestinian-controlled territory and Israeli gunboats patrolled the Gaza Strip shoreline for the second night in a row. Tanks blocked the main north-south road in Gaza, witnesses said.

Red Crescent rescue service workers said Israeli tank shells hit two houses. The dead were identified as Rawaida Hajien, 50; two of her sons, Ashraf, 23, and Mehad, 17; and their cousin Mohammed, 20. Hajien’s 4-year-old son, Khaled, was critically wounded, and three other people were hurt, doctors said.

Dr. Nafez Shalach, acting director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where the casualties were taken, charged that Israeli forces prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded for more than 40 minutes.

Israeli military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said suspicious figures approached an army outpost, and tanks fired at them, hitting them. The sources said this was late at night in an area where Palestinian movement is forbidden, not in a built-up area.

Even before today’s incursion, Israel postponed a meeting to implement a new security agreement because of recent violence.

Palestinian security forces set up checkpoints Wednesday in the Gaza Strip to show that they can maintain order as part of the deal.

The agreement to use Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem as test cases, announced Aug. 18, led to withdrawal of Israeli forces from Bethlehem two days later. Palestinians charge that the Israelis are stalling the Gaza handover.

Israel counters that the Palestinians are not stopping terrorist attacks and called off a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh.

Two other Palestinians were reportedly killed elsewhere.

In central Gaza, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man as he approached an army post.

In the West Bank, a 32-year-old Palestinian man was killed when a tank opened fire with machine guns, hitting his home in the Jenin refugee camp, Palestinian witnesses said.