2 Die in Gaza During Israeli Incursion

Israeli troops shot dead one Palestinian man, and another died under the rubble of one of three homes soldiers demolished in a predawn operation in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians said Sunday.

About 30 Israeli tanks rolled into Beit Lahiya late Saturday. Palestinian witnesses reported fierce exchanges of gunfire between Palestinians and Israeli troops during the three-hour incursion. They said the dead man was a bystander watching events from his home’s balcony. The army said soldiers fired at and hit armed Palestinians.

Early Sunday, hours after the army withdrew, Palestinians found the body of Ashour Dab, 70, under the rubble of one of the three homes the army demolished, Palestinian witnesses and emergency officials said. They said he did not have time to flee before the demolition.

An army spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal, said soldiers routinely perform “a lengthy procedure” to make sure homes are vacant.

“The soldiers call on loudspeakers for people to leave, the building is thoroughly searched, and then there is a final call,” he said. “This whole procedure takes ... two to three hours.”

Among the homes destroyed was that of Hisham Dab, an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber who killed 20 Israelis in a 1996 attack in Tel Aviv, the army said. It did not say why it struck the house six years after the attack.

Later Sunday, an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at a car carrying three members of Islamic Jihad between Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp, injuring one of them and three bystanders, security sources said. Witnesses said the car’s occupants leaped out of the vehicle just before the missiles struck.

“Suddenly I saw a Mercedes driving fast down the road and it was hit by flames coming from the sky,” said Amina Daalasa, 55, who lives nearby.

During more than two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence, Israel has killed dozens of suspected militants in what it calls “targeted attacks,” saying that it is preventing terror strikes.

Palestinians charge that the practice amounts to assassination of their leaders, and human rights groups call such attacks summary executions without judicial process.