FIVE PALESTINIAN militants were killed late Saturday night in an Israeli air strike in the centre of the Gaza strip.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its aircraft “targeted and identified hitting a squad of terror operatives who were preparing to launch rockets towards Israeli territory”.
Palestinian sources confirmed that the dead men were members of the Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees militias.
The Israeli statement said Hamas, which controls Gaza, was responsible for maintaining order in the coastal territory. Eager to prevent Israeli strikes, Hamas has made efforts to stop rocket fire into Israel, and the number of attacks has sharply decreased since Israel’s 22-day offensive against Gaza militants in December 2008.
But the smaller militant groups continue to fire projectiles. According to Israeli military sources more than 200 rockets, missiles or mortars fired from Gaza have landed in southern Israel this year.
The body of an American woman tourist was discovered yesterday in a Jerusalem area forest after a widespread search involving hundreds of police, troops and volunteers.
Christine Logan was hiking on Saturday with a female companion, Kaye Wilson (46), who had immigrated to Israel from the UK, when they were attacked by two men, identified by Wilson as Arabs. After being robbed both women were bound, gagged and stabbed repeatedly.
Ms Wilson told reporters she survived by pretending to be dead. “I was very scared, but my friend became hysterical. I told her to be quiet, but she told them, ‘Take the money, take everything,‘ and they took everything. One of them took the Star of David necklace off my neck like a gentleman, and then they stabbed me 12 times. They came to kill.” She eventually staggered along the path and was discovered by two families hiking in the forest.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Israel of implementing “blatantly discriminatory” policies in the West Bank. In a 166-page report the group compared development of certain Palestinian communities in areas of the West Bank under Israeli control and east Jerusalem with neighbouring Jewish settlements.
“Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benefits,” said Carroll Bogert, a spokeswoman for the group.
The report found no legitimate security or other justification for the Israeli actions. The New York -based group called on the US to suspend annual aid to Israel equivalent to what Israel spends on settlements, which a 2003 study estimated at $1.4 billion. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, described HRW as biased.