Hamas says 4 gunmen killed in clashes with Israeli troops 2 hours, 33 minutes ago



Intense fighting in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday left four Hamas gunmen dead, Hamas said.

At least five Palestinians were injured in the clashes, Hamas and medics said. Israeli soldiers also were wounded, the Israeli army said, though it did not immediately say how many.

Israeli troops had entered the central Gaza Strip after midnight in what a military spokesman said was a routine operation to target militants launching rockets.

Troops exchanged fire with Hamas militants at several points, the army said. Israeli aircraft also fired at a group of gunmen, the army said. Hamas said four of its fighters were killed and three wounded.

Two Palestinian civilians were injured when their house was hit by a tank shell, medics said. The army did not immediately comment.

In one of the areas east of Gaza City, Israeli armored vehicles hit and damaged a mosque, local residents said. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the damage to the mosque.

Israeli troops frequently raid the Gaza Strip in an effort to target militant squads that launch rockets at Israel almost daily.

Israeli airstrike kills militant By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 15, 5:14 PM ET



An Israeli aircraft fired a missile late Tuesday at a motorcycle in northern Gaza, killing a Islamic Jihad commander, Palestinians said.

It was the second Israeli attack in as many days to target a key militant. On Monday, a senior leader from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was killed in a missile strike.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry said the the victim Tuesday belonged to Islamic Jihad. The group said the dead man was Mohammed Ghausain, its commander in northern Gaza. He was hit while riding his motorcycle in the Jebaliya refugee camp, Palestinians said.

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the attack. Israel frequently targets Gaza militants in airstrikes, trying to stop daily rocket fire from Gaza at southern Israel.

Al Aqsa Radio, a Gaza station affiliated with Hamas, broadcast the first report of the airstrike.

In a second airstrike, Palestinian officials said three Hamas militants were wounded, two critically, in a neighborhood of Gaza City next to the Israeli border.

The airstrike came during exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and armed Palestinians. Israel Radio reported that one soldier was seriously wounded.

Two Israeli soldiers, four militants killed in Gaza: report by Sakher Abu El Oun
17 minutes ago



Israeli troops backed by assault helicopters stormed into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and battled heavily armed militants, killing four Hamas fighters and reportedly losing two of their own.

The clashes marked the second eruption of violence in a week in the Hamas-led Palestinian territory.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and five wounded in an armed confrontation east of Gaza City, the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel reported.

Hamas claimed it killed the soldiers in a "sophisticated ambush" in Gaza City.

Four Hamas activists were killed in the same area, Palestinian medics said.

The militants of the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades, the Islamic movement's military wing, were killed by members of an Israeli unit backed by helicopters.

Six other Brigades members were captured and taken back to Israel by the soldiers at dawn, the sources said.

The army was involved in several clashes, a military spokeswoman said.

In one battle, troops were "targeted by Palestinians and there were several casualties," she said, adding that there had been several incidents and that Palestinians had used anti-tank missiles and mortars as well as assault rifles.

Palestinian gunmen were hit when the troops called in air support, she added.

On Tuesday, an Israeli air strike killed an activist of the hardline Islamic Jihad movement in the impoverished Palestinian territory, medics said.

Several bystanders were also wounded in the strike against the militant who was riding a motorbike near Jabaliya in the north of the territory.

The latest casualties bring to 395 the number of people killed, most of them Gaza militants, since Israel and the Palestinians relaunched formal peace talks at a US conference in November, according to an AFP count.

Wednesday's clashes came exactly one week after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli civilians who worked at the Nahal Oz fuel terminal on the border with the Gaza Strip. In all, seven Palestinians were killed in the aftermath of the daring attack.

Israel halted all fuel deliveries to Gaza after the April 9 attack on the terminal which supplies all of Gaza's fuel.

Authorities announced they would resume fuel deliveries to the Gaza electricity plant, as well as gas for cooking on Wednesday.

But the United Nations said that fell well short of what is needed in the territory, which is under a crippling Israeli embargo.

"The current absence of fuel at petrol stations has meant that normal transportation has ceased, many students have been unable to get to school and many health professionals have been unable to get to hospitals and clinics," UN agencies working in the occupied Palestinian territories said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

"There have been difficulties transporting essential items such as food throughout Gaza," the statement said.

The UN agencies said that even before the attack on Nahal Oz, the amount of fuel delivered by Israel to Gaza was "inadequate to fulfil Gaza's requirements."

The territory was receiving just 3.8 million litres of diesel and 340,000 litres of benzene, compared with more than 8.8 million litres and 1.7 million litres respectively a year previously.

Israel has cut all but very limited deliveries of essential supplies to Gaza since Hamas seized control of the territory in June in what it says is an attempt to pressure the Islamist movement to stop militants firing rockets into the Jewish state.

Carter embraces Hamas official at West Bank meeting By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Apr 15, 8:55 PM ET



Former President Carter angered Israel's government Tuesday by embracing a Hamas politician during a visit to the West Bank, ignoring Israeli and U.S. designation of the Islamic militants as a terror group. Israel accused Carter, the broker of the first Arab-Israeli peace accord, of "dignifying" extremists. But Carter vowed to meet Hamas' supreme leader this week in Syria.

Carter, a Nobel Peace laureate, also laid a wreath at Yasser Arafat's grave, another break with U.S. policy during a private peace mission to the Middle East that includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria — where the virulently anti-Israel Hamas movement has its headquarters. Carter returns to Israel on Monday.

Carter has been shunned by Israel this week, and the White House has criticized him for his willingness to meet with Hamas leaders. Carter says the U.S. and Israel should stop isolating the group, whose control of the Gaza Strip threatens to undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

"Since Syria and Hamas will have to be involved in a final peace agreement, they have to be involved in discussions that lead to final peace," Carter said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

During the graveside ceremony, a two-man honor guard escorted the 83-year-old Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. Carter placed the wreath on the grave, then solemnly nodded before turning away. Later, a Palestinian host told Carter that Arafat's resting place was temporary, and the Palestinians hope to move his remains to Jerusalem one day. Carter did not react.

President Bush blamed Arafat for the breakdown of peace talks and subsequent wave of violence and cut off of contacts with the longtime Palestinian leader before he died in 2004. Bush did not visit Arafat's grave when he visited Ramallah this year.

Carter also attended a reception organized by his office for Palestinian dignitaries in Ramallah. At the gathering, Carter embraced Nasser Shaer, a senior Hamas politician, meeting participants said. Embraces between men are a common custom in Arab culture.

"We hugged each other, and it was a warm reception," Shaer said. "Carter asked what he can do to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel ... and I told him the possibility for peace is high."

Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister and education minister in the Hamas-led Palestinian government that unraveled last year, is considered a leading member of the Islamic militant group's pragmatic wing. After a stint in an Israeli prison last year, he is now a professor at a West Bank university, teaching comparative religion.

Palestinians say Shaer, an academic, was not involved in Hamas attacks against Israel, and Israel has never charged him with violent activity.

Carter's office refused to comment on the closed meeting.

Carter is scheduled to meet Khaled Mashaal, the group's exiled leader, in Damascus on Friday.

"The official Hamas position until this day is that it won't negotiate with Israel or recognize it under any circumstance," Israeli Foreign Ministry official Yigal Palmor said. "Jimmy Carter has dignified this position with his presence, and one cannot but wonder how this attitude is supposed to promote peace and understanding."

Carter's comparisons of Israeli policies in the West Bank — such as separate roads for Jews and Arabs — to apartheid in South Africa also have angered Israeli leaders.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not meeting with Carter this week, and the only Israeli leader to host him, President Shimon Peres, criticized Carter for the planned meeting with Mashaal.

Carter has offered to serve as a conduit between the militant group and the U.S. and Israeli governments.

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Associated Press correspondents Dalia Nammari and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah contributed to this article.