GAZA (PIC)– Three Palestinian civilians were killed Sunday in an IOF air raid on Beit Lahia town to the north of the Gaza Strip including a father and his son medical sources reported.
They told PIC that three Palestinians guarding a factory in the town were killed in the missile raid including Zaher Al-Ar 40 and his teenage son Yousef along with the 23-year-old youth Mohammed Abu Harbid.
Dr. Muawiya Hassanein said that the IOF choppers fired a number of missiles at the factory killing the three civilian workers and badly mutilating their bodies.
Palestinian security sources denied IOF allegation that the shelling targeted resistance fighters.
The IOF command claimed that the raid targeted a number of resistance fighters who had fired three locally made missiles at the Sderot settlement adjacent to the Gaza Strip causing material damage to one of the houses.
In the West Bank IOF units advanced into the city of Tulkarm and its refugee camp before dawn Sunday amidst intensified firing in all directions.
Witnesses said that the invasion troops mounting 15 armored vehicles stormed the city shortly after midnight Saturday and fired live bullets and sonic bombs.
They forced shops that were still open to close down and broke into many homes in the eastern and northern suburbs of the city along with downtown and the refugee camp the sources said adding that no one were arrested when the soldiers left the city at 0500 local time.
USA gives green light for invasion of Gaza
Meanwhile a Lebanese daily newspaper quoted “reliable” diplomatic sources as saying on Saturday that the USA had approved an IOF “painful” strike against the southern front meaning the Gaza Strip.
The sources told ‘Al-Akhbar’ newspaper that the Hebrew state sent intelligence information to Washington stressing the importance of launching a strong military operation to retaliate to what it called the “qualitative” development of Palestinian resistance factions in the Strip.
The reports claimed that the armed wings of Hamas Islamic Jihad and Fatah were growing in number and military hardware.
The diplomatic sources said that the operation was delayed due to the “complicated preparations” made by several parties to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement prior to the Annapolis conference.
The sources however said that the IOF troops stationed at the borders with the Strip were gearing up for a large-scale incursion into northern and central Gaza that would later expand to include the entire Strip.
