- GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli
forces destroyed eight Palestinian houses in pre-dawn raids in the Gaza
Strip on Thursday, including the home of a dead militant's family, witnesses
said.
-
- Shooting erupted between the Israeli troops and Palestinian
gunmen as tanks and armored bulldozers moved into the Shijaia neighborhood
east of Gaza City. One Palestinian was seriously hurt, Palestinian officials
said.
-
- Israel has added house demolitions to its measures to
combat the almost two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip, hoping this will deter militants behind suicide
bombings and other attacks.
-
- Three houses were destroyed in Shijaia, two in Maghazi
refugee camp in central Gaza and three in the Rafah refugee camp in southern
Gaza which is near the border with Egypt, witnesses and Palestinian security
officials said.
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- The houses in Maghazi belonged to the Shehada family,
seven of whose members were detained in an Israeli raid on Tuesday.
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- One of the houses razed in Shijaia belonged to the family
Osama Helles, who was shot dead by troops as he carried out an ambush near
a Jewish settlement in Gaza last November in which he killed an Israeli
woman and wounded three other people.
-
- The army said it had destroyed Helles's house as part
of "counter-terrorist measures." Two nearby houses were wrecked
by the explosion, which also damaged several other buildings.
-
- The army denied deliberately demolishing homes in Rafah
but said heavy vehicles searching for tunnels used for arms smuggling may
have damaged some "structures" -- suggesting they may have brought
some houses down unintentionally.
-
- Helles's mother, Khawla, said the troops gave the family
10 minutes to vacate the building.
-
- "All we were able to take out was a few important
family documents," she said. "A house where we lived for 30 years
was turned to rubble...I lost one son and now we have lost our house."
-
- Her husband, Mohammed, said that when the soldiers entered
the house they asked for Osama Helles by name and he said his son was dead.
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- "But they responded with: 'Is he dead or a martyr?',"
he said, using the term Palestinians use for those killed in battle.
-
- Eleven-year-old Salman Helles, the brother of the dead
militant, said he snatched up his schoolbag and books before his home was
demolished but had no time to gather anything else.
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- "It's all gone," he said.
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