Palestinians killed in Israeli shelling
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Tuesday 04 January 2005, 18:10 Makka Time, 15:10 GMT
Israeli occupation forces have killed at least seven Palestinian farmers, including five children, after tanks fired artillery shells on a northern Gaza family farm where crops were being harvested.
Medical sources at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Bait Lahya in northern Gaza told Aljazeera.net that six of the victims of Tuesday’s shelling were from one family.
“We received the bodies of three children – young boys – and four bodies of adults. The bodies of the boys were mutilated beyond recognition,” Dr Muhammad Sultan, spokesman of the hospital’s emergency department, said.
Sultan said the victims included Ragih Ghassan Ghaban, 11, Muhammad Kamal Ghaban, 13, and Haidar Abd Allah Ghaban, also 13.
Aljazeera’s correspondent in Gaza, Wail al-Dahduh, cited Israeli sources as saying the Israeli army fired three shells at Palestinian fighters.
Farmers targeted?
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks fired into Bait Lahya shortly after mortars crashed into the nearby Jewish Nissanit settlement, wounding two people.
Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian lands are deemed illegal under international law. Palestinian security sources said the Israeli shelling hit a group of farmers.
An Israeli army spokesman said: “As far as we know, we killed terrorists not farmers.”
He said an army tank crew spotted a “terrorist cell” trying to plant bombs or fire missiles, and liquidated them.
The spokesman refused to comment on the possibility that Israeli forces mistook the farmers for terrorists, saying it was too early to “think in this direction”.
Palestinian citizens said they were shocked when a tank fired at an agricultural area where troops should have been able to distinguish between resistance fighters and citizens who work in the area.
Dr Muawiya Hasanin, head of the emergency department at the Palestinian ministry of health, said none of the victims was affiliated or associated with any resistance group. “They are farmers, all of them,” he said.
Toll rising
The violence erupted just one day after Israel said it had ended an armoured incursion into Bait Hanun and Jabalya in northern Gaza in what Israel said was another effort to eliminate rocket and mortar squads who target illegal settlements. But witnesses and Aljazeera’s correspondent said Israeli troops had not withdrawn completely and were still in some areas in Bait Hanun and in southeastern Bait Lahya.
On Monday, Israeli forces killed a 22-year-old Palestinian said to have been a member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades and seriously injured a Palestinian girl in al-Shabura refugee camp in Rafah.
About 20 Palestinians have been killed since Israeli forces began the latest military operations in the area last week.
The latest deaths brought the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the intifada to 3624 Palestinians and 970 Israelis.