LOC18:51
15:51 GMT
By Zakaria Al-Tilimis
GAZA, Jan 2 (KUNA) -- An Israeli-manned F-16 fighter jet raided a house in
Sheikh Radwan region north of Gaza city on Friday destroying it and wounding
seven occupants, witnesses and medical sources reported.
Medical sources said among the wounded was a two-year-old baby girl and
driver of an ambulance.
Several F-16s raided the site of the long-abandoned Gaza airport site, east
of the border town of Rafah, and two houses in Al-Shujaiah district in eastern
Gaza city were attacked, but no casualties were reported.
The roaring aircraft also bombed a police station in Al-Meghraqa in the
center of the strip and the Marriot Hotel in the western half of the city,
causing extensive damage.
Meanwhile, Israeli gunboats cruising off shore hit buildings used by
Izz-Eddine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic group Hamas in
Gaza city. Other sites were also pounded with rockets fired from the cruising
vessels.
Israeli fighter jets and gunship helicopters, engaged in a massive air
operation on Gaza Strip since a week ago, carried out a new wave of attacks
throughout the day, adding to wide-scale damage in the bomb-battered strip.
Earlier, witnesses said an Israeli Apache gunship helicopter fired a pair
of rockets in the direction of a courtyard of a house in the town of
Al-Qarrarah, north of Khan Youness, in the south of Gaza Strip.
The rockets' blast killed three children who were playing outside their
house, they said.
Hammad Mesbeh, 15, died in an Israeli air strike on a house in the district
of Al-Shujaiah eastern Gaza city, medical sources said. Fadi Wuhaib Sehbat,
20, died in another air assault on a house in Beit Hanoun, in the north of the
strip.
Sources at Al-Shifaa Hospital said a 6-year-old girl, who was wounded in an
air strike two days ago, succumbed to her injuries today at the hospital.
At the refugee camp of Al-Nusairat, located in the center of the strip,
fighter jets fired rockets in the direction of the house of a leading member
of Izz-Eddine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic movement,
Hamas, rendering the house into a heap of smouldering rubble. But no
casualties were reported. The aircraft hit another house in the camp leaving
three people wounded.
Sources at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah said four wounded
people were admitted today.
In Khan Youness in the south of the strip, the aircraft attacked and
demolished a house and wounded several people.
With this, the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli attacks on Gaza
so far came to 427, with more than 2,240 injured. (pickup previous)
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