Israel Bombs Militant’s Home

An Israeli F-16 warplane attacked the home of a senior Palestinian militant on Sunday but he escaped without injury seconds before missiles slammed into the building in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses said.

At least 10 people were wounded in the attack on a home that an Israeli army spokesman said was owned by Yusef Abdel Wahab, a leader of the Islamic group Hamas in southern Gaza.

The spokesman said the building was used to make bombs for attacks on Israeli troops in Gaza, as well as for Hamas meetings.

Witnesses said Wahab bolted from the house near the town of Khan Yunis immediately after hearing the sound of aircraft. The house was destroyed, and four nearby buildings were damaged.

In the pandemonium that ensued, a Palestinian man on trial for allegedly collaborating with Israel to kill five Palestinians in southern Gaza last month was shot and killed by militants, a judge said.

Court proceedings for Abdel Hai Sababi, 48, had gone into recess and Sababi was in a detention room when the Israeli aircraft fired the missiles near the court, said Brig. Gen. Abdel Aziz Wadi, chairman of the court.

During the chaos, some members of Hamas broke into the detention room and fatally shot Sababi, Wadi said.

The airstrike followed Palestinian mortar attacks Saturday night and Sunday morning against the nearby Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom. No one was injured at the settlement.

Later Sunday, Israeli tanks moved into a Palestinian town in northern Gaza, Beit Lahiya, and shot dead Nidal Amudi, 17, as he walked through a farm, Palestinian security forces and officials at Shifa Hospital said.

Army officials denied that tanks had moved into the area but said soldiers had returned fire after mortar shells were fired at a Jewish settlement in the area.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, a 24-year-old Palestinian, Gazi abu Obieh, was killed in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus. The army said troops fired after Obieh threw a gasoline bomb in their direction and then rushed their jeep wielding a knife.