Israel: Gaza shelling to continue until rockets stop

Apr 9, 2006, 18:01 GMT

Gaza - An Israeli artillery shell killed a Palestinian policeman in the northern Gaza Strip Sunday and wounded three other people, bringing to 15 the number of people killed in Israeli attacks over the weekend.

In a separate incident, Israeli undercover soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Bethlehem late Sunday afternoon.

An army spokeswoman said the Palestinian was killed in a gunfight which erupted as soldiers arrived to arrest him. He had been involved in planning attacks against Israelis, she said.

Palestinian sources said the fatality was a member of the Gaza- based militant Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), who had fled the Strip for Bethlehem where he tried to set up PRC cells.

He had apparently been tracked by the Israelis to the southern West Bank city, the sources said.

Despite the high toll in Gaza - the highest in a series of Israeli attacks since its summer withdrawal from the Gaza Strip - Israel said it will continue pounding launching sites in the salient until Palestinians halt their cross-border rocket attacks.

'We will do whatever is necessary, at all hours of the day, to reduce the launchings at Israel,' Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Israeli cabinet Sunday morning.

Palestinian Prime Minister Isma'eel Haneya called an emergency meeting of the Palestinian cabinet Sunday to discuss the heightened Israeli attacks.

The Islamic Jihad organization, behind the majority of rocket firings from the Strip, appeared divided over its response to the Israeli artillery shelling.

A spokesman for the group's military wing said the movement would halt attacks for one week to spare Palestinian civilians from the Israeli retaliation.

But Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad political official, later denied the group had any intention of ceasing to launch rockets at Israeli targets across the Gaza border.

Palestinian medical and security officials said the policeman was killed Sunday morning when a shell landed near his post. An Israeli army spokesman said the artillery fire had not specifically targeted the police post.

The Israeli army had several days ago warned the Palestinian police - who were not preventing militants from launching rockets near the post - to evacuate the area, since it could be shelled.

The police refused, the army spokesman and Palestinian sources said.

On Saturday evening the Israeli air force struck targets within the Strip, killing six Palestinian militants and wounding several others.

Later Saturday, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired missiles at the Khan Yunis training facility in the central Gaza Strip of the Ahmed Abu Rish Brigades, a group affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, killing another six militants, Palestinians reported.

The attack followed another missile strike earlier in the day that killed two al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade militants.

By Sunday morning the total Palestinian dead in the weekend strikes numbered 15.

An Israeli army spokesperson said that in the 48 hours preceding the last attack, 11 missiles were fired toward Israel.

Israel Radio reported that security forces have raised their alert level following threats by Palestinians to avenge the Israeli attacks.