Sunday, 4 January 2009
Gaza – Ma’an – Israel escalated shelling in the Gaza Strip in recent hours, killing a number of Palestinians as resistance fighters continue to confront Israeli tanks and ground troops that entered the Strip from four points.
At least thirty Palestinians have been killed since the ground invasion began on Saturday night, and more than 500 since Israel began intense airstrikes on 27 December. Gaza medical officials put the number of wounded at 2,250 over nine days.
Ma’an’s journalists in Gaza have confirmed that Israeli forces killed a senior leader of one armed group, the National Resistance Brigades, the military arm of the leftist Democratic Front. The leader Mohmad Barbakh was killed along with his father, two brothers, and his nephew in the An-Nahdah neighborhood of the city of Rafah.
Separately at least five Palestinians were killed and forty others injured when a local market in the western section of Gaza City.
Medical sources at Kamal Udwan Hospital in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya said large numbers of casualties, including several children are arriving to seeking treatment. They said several of the dead were from the Al-Adham family.
Explosions are being heard across the Gaza Strip, and fierce fighting has been reported between Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, and Israeli soldiers. The group reported capturing two Israeli soldiers around eleven in the morning Sunday, though the capture has been denied by Israeli sources.
The afternoon’s strikes and clashes are as follows:
12:15pm Israeli artillery hit a market area killing at least five civilians and injuring more than 40.
11:45am Israeli missiles targeted the Palestinian Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs in Gaza City, injuring several passersby.
11:30am Israeli warplanes fired missiles at Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Ambulances were seen speeding up towards the area.
11:15am An Israeli reconnaissance plane fired a missile at the Rafah home of DFLP leader Muhammad Abed Barbakh, killing him and four members of his family including his father Abed, his two brothers Mahdi and Yousef, his nephew Musa Yousef.
11:00am An-Nassar Salah Ad-Din activist dies of wounds in Saudi Arabia hospital
Tanks advance from four points
Israeli forces breached Gaza borders at ten Saturday evening and have been advancing ever since. Palestinian fighters clashed with the advancing army, reportedly killing 30 Israeli soldiers.
East of Gaza City tanks entered Gaza through the Nahal Oz and Karni crossing points, they advanced and headed south of Gaza City and are currently stationed at what used to be an Israeli settlement called Netsarim. Tank fire killed three in the Ashuja’yya neighborhood.
