12 Civilians, Cameraman killed in Gaza

Source: The Daily Star, 17-04-2008
'Israeli' forces killed at least 12 Palestinians, most of them civilians and including a cameraman for an international news agency, as troops backed by helicopters stormed Gaza Wednesday.
The bulk of the attacks came after three 'Israeli' troops were killed in a Hamas ambush near a border fuel pipeline.
Fadel Shana, 23, a Reuters cameraman, was critically wounded when a projectile hit his vehicle in central Gaza. He died after being taken to hospital, Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, told AFP.
An AFP photographer driving behind the Reuters jeep, which had large TV and press stickers plastered across its doors, roof, and hood, said the vehicle burst into flames after a missile slammed into it.
When a group of photographers rushed to try to rescue their colleague a second missile struck the area, he said.
Two more people were killed in the strike, medics said.
Film from Shana's camera showed an 'Israeli' tank several hundred meters away opening fire. Some two seconds after a shot raises dust around the main gun barrel, the film goes blank - apparently at the moment Shana was hit.
The 'Israeli' military claimed it was looking into the incident.
Shana was driving near the Al-Bureij refugee camp in southern Gaza, where at least nine Palestinians were killed in an earlier air strike, all of them civilians, according to Hassanein.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemned the 'Israeli' military assault and called on all sides to respect a cease-fire.
"President Abbas strongly condemned ‘Israel's' escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip," said spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, who is traveling with Abbas on a three-day visit to Moscow to prepare for a peace conference in the Russian capital in June.
Abbas, whose forces were driven from Gaza in June when Hamas seized power there, has been holding US-sponsored (so-called) peace talks with 'Israeli' Premier Ehud Olmert since November.
'Israel' has meanwhile launched near-daily military operations in the Gaza Strip that it says are aimed at halting rocket fire on southern 'Israel'.
Earlier in the day clashes erupted after Palestinian gunmen approached the security fence separating Gaza from 'Israel' near the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, which supplies most of Gaza's fuel and which was attacked last week.
"Three soldiers were killed and three were wounded in an exchange of fire," an army spokeswoman said.
Hamas claimed that it killed the 'Israeli' soldiers in a "sophisticated ambush."
"This ambush is a message to let the Zionist enemy know that Gaza will remain a cauldron that will break its will and criminal plans," said Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Four members of the brigades were killed earlier by an 'Israeli' unit backed by helicopters, and six others were captured and taken back to 'Israel' at dawn, medics said.
In a separate incident, the 'Israeli' military severely damaged a mosque in Gaza City during an early morning attack. Local residents said 'Israeli' armored vehicles fired on the mosque during intense fighting in the area.
But the 'Israeli' military said one of its soldiers was wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire from within the mosque, which a military statement described as having been used "for storing a large amount of explosive substances and explosive devices."
Palestinian militants, meanwhile, fired at least 11 rockets and 26 mortar shells at southern 'Israel' without causing casualties, the army said.
Wednesday's death toll was the highest in Gaza since March 1, when 'Israeli' forces killed over 60 Palestinians - about half of them civilians - in a single day during a land and air blitz.
The clashes came a week after Palestinian gunmen responded to an earlier 'Israeli' attack by killing two 'Israeli' settlers who worked at Nahal Oz, prompting 'Israel' to halt all fuel deliveries to Gaza. A security official said the terminal reopened on Wednesday, but only to transfer fuel for Gaza's power plant.
The United Nations earlier called for larger quantities of fuel to be supplied and distributed in the impoverished territory, which has been under a crippling 'Israeli' embargo since Hamas seized power in June.
The UN said that even before the attack on Nahal Oz, the amount of fuel delivered by 'Israel' was "inadequate to fulfil Gaza's requirements."