The
Israeli army has killed six Palestinians in overnight attacks. Four casualties occurred
in an air strike, east of Gaza City; the battle for Beit Hanoun claims another
victim and one citizen was assassinated by undercover army units in the West
Bank city of Nablus, Friday at dawn.
Palestinian sources reported that Ammar Mushtaha, a leader of the Hamas-affiliated
Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, and a further three of his comrades, died when an Israeli
drone aircraft fired a missile targeting their car in the Al Shojaeyya neighbourhood,
east of Gaza
city. Medical sources report that when the
four corpses arrived at the hospital, the bodies were almost unrecognizable, and
the four must have died at the scene of the attack.
Overnight, the offensive against Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza strip, continued. One resident was shot and killed by an Israeli
sniper in the early hours of the morning, in the ongoing Israeli military siege
of the town.
Israeli media sources have stated that the army targeted and killed four
resistance fighters, east of Gaza
city on Friday at dawn, and added that clashes between the invading troops and
local resistance fighters are still ongoing around the Beit Hanoun mosque, where
more than 60 fighters are besieged. Part of the roof of the mosque has already
been destroyed by the army, although Palestinian sources have reported that most
of the fighters had left the mosque before the destruction happened.
The five killed on Friday raises the death toll in the Gaza Strip since
Wednesday to 20, with over 80 injured, among them children.
In a separate event, in Nablus city in the north
of the West Bank, the Israeli army announced
on Friday morning that an undercover force had invaded the city and opened fire
upon Ahmad Sanakra, 28, an activist with the Al-Aqsa Brigades of the Fatah
movement, wounding him, and killing his 14 year old brother Ibraheem.
Eyewitnesses said that undercover Israeli army Special Forces stormed the house
of Mohamed Inab, 33, adjacent to the Sanakra family home, and opened fire at
Ahmad, injuring him and killing his brother, before taking Inab prisoner. Al-Aqsa
Brigades fighters managed to move Sanakra to a safe place, where his wounds
were described as "critical".
