More Homes Destroyed In Gaza

Israeli war planes targeted and destroyed two homes in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip after warning residents with a phone call to evacuate. The planes struck in the early hours of Thursday morning on the assumption that they contained weapons caches, according to a military spokesman.

The homes belonged to two members of Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Neither the Palestinian fighters nor their families were injured. The houses were demolished, one which was three stories high, and neighboring homes endured blast damage.

Wednesday night, Israeli war planes struck a residential area, claimed to be a training site for the Salah Eddin Brigade, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees. Three Palestinians were killed, including a three-year old girl and three others were wounded.

More than 170 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, have been killed and over a thousand injured in the Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip which started on June 28.

Israel claims its offensive aims at freeing a captured Israeli soldier and stopping the Palestinian resistance fighters from firing homemade Qassam shells at Israel.

Soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian resistance fighters in a military operation carried out on June 26 in which five Israeli soldiers where killed and several were wounded.

Sourced from aljazeera.net