Israeli Air Force gun-ships fired five missiles at targets in the Gaza Strip early Friday morning, witnesses said. No casualties were reported.
Witnesses also said that the Israeli army divided the strip into three parts, limiting the movement of the Palestinian civilians.
The first strike targeted a pro-Hamas charitable society in Gaza City. The second strike targeted a cemetery, which Israeli military sources claim Palestinian fighters use as a launching pad to fire Qassam and home-made mortar shells at Israeli settlements.
Resident rushed to the attacked sites, and ambulances and civil defense forces arrived to put out the fires. Medical sources said that one man was treated at a hospital after being injured by flying debris. His wounds were described as moderate.
The third missile landed in the sea near Deir Al-Balah refugee camp; gun-ships then returned and fired another missile into the camp. No serious damage or injuries were reported.
The air-strikes were conducted in retaliation for the death of an Israeli settler woman Friday when a Qassam shell fired by Palestinian resistance fighters hit her house.
Dana Glakowitz, 22, who was sitting on the porch of her home in a Negev moshav, was critically injured in the blast and pronounced dead shortly thereafter. Another two Israelis were lightly injured.
The U.S. urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take immediate action to end resistance attacks on Israeli settlements, Israel Radio reported on Friday.
The U.S. State Department said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed the issue with Abbas on the phone Thursday night, but mentioned no details of the call.
However, Rice’s assistant David Welsch met with Abbas in Ramallah on Thursday and conveyed U.S. demands for Abbas to act against the resistance.
After the meeting, PA security officers clashed with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, leading Abbas to declare a state of emergency in the Strip.
