Hamas cease-fire ends when Israeli beach strike kills 7

GDO Report

The shells landed on a beach near the town of Beit Lahiya where Palestinian families were picnicking on a warm Muslim Sabbath afternoon, quickly filling the emergency rooms of Kamal Odwan Hospital and al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza with wounded and grieving people.

Among the dead, Palestinian hospital officials said, were the Ghaliyah family - Ali, 49; his wife, Raisa, 35; and their four children, Ilham, 15, Sabreen, 7, Hanadi, 1, and, Haihsam, 5 months. Others killed had the same last name, though their relations were unclear. Many more of the wounded were children.

"No doubt what's going on in Gaza is a bloody massacre against our people, our civilians, without discrimination," said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who called on foreign countries and the United Nations "to put an end to this Israeli killing policy."

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli military's chief of staff, ordered the shelling halted until the results of the investigation were available. Israeli military officials also offered to help wounded Palestinians get medical treatment.

Initially, it appeared that Israeli navy gunboats were responsible for the shelling. But Israeli military officials examined aerial footage of the incident in the ensuing hours and determined that neither naval vessels nor military aircraft had fired on the beach. The officials said they believed the shells came from artillery arrayed along Gaza's eastern boundary with Israel.

"If this is the result of artillery fire, we deeply regret it," said Capt. Noa Meir, a military spokeswoman. "This is not our intention at all, far from it."

Israel's military is under increasing public pressure to put a stop to the menacing, near-daily rocket fire by Palestinian guerrillas inside Gaza, which Israeli artillery and airstrikes have failed to do. Israeli military officials have noted an escalation in rocket attacks in recent days; so far this week, more than 30 of the rockets have been fired toward Israel. On Friday, at least four rockets landed inside Israel, the military said.

The Israeli city of Sderot, the home town of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, has been hit several times this week. Although no Israelis have been killed in rocket fire since Israel evacuated its settlements and military bases in Gaza last year, the homemade projectiles have proved fatal in the past. At least one Israeli woman in Sderot was wounded by shrapnel this week after a rocket crashed into a house.

The beach shelling occurred roughly an hour after an Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinian gunmen who had fired a rocket into southern Israel, the military said. Israeli military aircraft targeted the gunmen's escape car with a missile.

The men belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, a radical armed group at war with Israel and responsible for much of the rocket fire. An Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Thursday night killed the group's leader, Jamal Abu Samhadanah, who also served as director general of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

Thousands of mourners paraded through the streets of Rafah in southern Gaza on Friday for Samhadanah's funeral, many vowing revenge against Israel.

Israeli military officials also said on Friday that military aircraft fired on a car in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. The military said the car belonged to Hamas gunmen on their way to carry out a rocket attack. There were no reports of casualties.

Hamas, the radical Islamic movement now running the Palestinian Authority's ministries, has largely abided by an informal cease-fire agreement brokered by Abbas in March 2005. But Israeli military officials cited evidence that Hamas's armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, has been behind some recent rocket attacks. In a statement issued Friday, the group vowed to retaliate for the beach attack.

Abbas, meanwhile, scheduled a news conference for Saturday in the West Bank city of Ramallah, apparently to set a date for a referendum on whether a future Palestinian state should encompass the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - areas Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Hamas opposes the referendum, which is based on a document signed last month by imprisoned leaders of Hamas and Abbas's Fatah movement. Hamas says a future Palestinian state should also cover territory that now includes Israel. Abbas is expected to set the vote for July 31.

In a video broadcast Friday on the al-Jazeera satellite television network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, called on Palestinians to oppose the referendum. He said, "Palestine is not for bargaining."