“Israeli” Airstrike Wounds 9 in Gaza

Source: VOA news, 19-11-2006.
Palestinian medical officials say an "Israeli" airstrike has wounded nine Palestinians in Gaza City. They say an "Israeli" aircraft fired a missile at a car carrying a Hamas sympathiser. "Israel" confirmed the strike.
Hours earlier, rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian militants wounded an "Israeli" woman in the southern "Israeli" town of Sderot.
Meanwhile, "Israel" has dismissed a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning an artillery strike that killed 19 Palestinian civilians 12 days ago in the Gaza Strip. Robert Berger reports from the VOA bureau in Jerusalem (al-Quds) the declaration was made as Palestinians acting as human shields forced "Israel" to call off a Gaza air strike.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Cabinet that the U.N. General Assembly should be blaming Palestinians for the continuing bloodshed in Gaza and not "Israel". He rejected the resolution`s call for a U.N. probe into the errant artillery strike that caused carnage in a crowded Gaza neighborhood.
Mr. Olmert claimed, "It is not the State of ‘Israel' that should be answering questions about the harming of civilians," especially after it expressed deep regret over the incident. He claimed Palestinians were to blame.
About the same time as the Cabinet was meeting, several more rockets were fired at the hard-hit "Israeli" border town of Sderot. Last week, a settler there was killed in a retaliatory rocket attack.
Since then, "Israeli" hawks have called for a major offensive in Gaza to stop the rocket fire, but Mr. Olmert rejected that, saying the problem cannot be resolved in one swoop.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar says there is only one way for "Israel" to stop the rockets:
"Stop all the military aggression against the Palestinian people," al-Zahar says.
"Israel" planned to bomb the homes of two leaders in Gaza, but the air strike was called off when hundreds of Palestinians crowded around the buildings. "Israel" had issued a warning to evacuate the homes, but in a new tactic that proved effective, Palestinians came out and formed human shields. The defiant crowd shouted, "Death to ‘Israel'!" and "Death to America!"