Israel strikes Gaza, killing Hamas man

AFP/JerusalemIsrael launched an air strike in southern Gaza yesterday and killed a Hamas militant after a sniper attack on a patrol seriously wounded a soldier, the army and medics said. It was only the second time Israel had struck Gaza since a 50-day war ended with a truce on August 26, after witnesses reported a first strike early on Saturday. The Israeli military said it acted after its troops came under fire from a sniper while they were on the Israeli side of the border fence. “As a result of the attack, an IDF combat soldier from the Bedouin Reconnaissance Battalion suffered a severe chest injury,” an army statement said. “In response to the firing at our forces, who were east of the fence in the southern Gaza Strip, we carried out immediate attacks against the relevant targets. There was an air strike and one by a tank,” it said. Palestinian medical sources said Tayseer al-Ismary, 33, was killed “as a result of gunfire and shrapnel from a tank shell” in the incident east of the southern city of Khan Younis. Hamas sources said he was a member of its military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner denounced the attack. “Hamas sniper attack is an outrageous act of aggression. IDF will continue to protect its forces and the border area,” he wrote on Twitter, noting the military had instructed Gazan farmers to keep away from the border area “for their own safety”. Hamas blamed Israel. “The Israeli occupation is responsible for the tension east of Khan Younis. They tried to cross the border, provoking a response from Hamas,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel would “react firmly to any attempt to call into question calm in the south (of Israel) following Operation Protective Edge”, referring to the July-August military offensive in the Gaza Strip. On Saturday, after a rocket struck southern Israel, the air force hit Gaza for the first time since the truce took hold. Since then, three rockets have hit the Israeli south. A month ago Israeli troops killed a Palestinian near the border fence in northern Gaza in the first deadly shooting since the truce. Yesterday’s shooting was the second such fatal incident. The exchanges have raised concerns there could be a new flare-up of violence in and around the tiny Palestinian enclave, which is home to 1.8mn people. Nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed during the July-August war, mostly civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers. Experts warn that a new war could be in the offing if reconstruction is not accelerated and Palestinian divisions remain. Swathes of the territory lie in ruins and tens of thousands of people remain homeless.  With reconstruction still conspicuous by its absence and talks to bolster the August truce repeatedly postponed, frustration is growing in Gaza—and with it the danger of a new outbreak of violence. Last week, as Hamas militants paraded through Gaza with rocket launchers and missiles in a show of force to mark the 27th anniversary of the Islamist group’s founding, they were quick to warn that the situation was unsustainable. “If there is no reconstruction of what Israel destroyed, we warn you that there will be an explosion,” warned the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.  “If our demands are ignored, there will be consequences for the enemy, its people and its leaders.”  The glacial pace of reconstruction is the most immediate concern for Gaza, where UN figures show more than 96,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the war, leaving 100,000 people homeless.  Over the past eight years, Gaza has been subjected to an Israeli blockade which has effectively barred the entry of most construction materials on grounds that militants could use them for other purposes. After the war, the UN brokered a mechanism which would allow such goods in while ensuring they do not fall into the wrong hands.  Palestinian officials say Israel has effectively blocked reconstruction by limiting supplies entering Gaza, but diplomatic sources say the UN-brokered mechanism has taken longer than expected to get up and running. The process has also been slowed by infighting between Hamas and Fatah, its West Bank-based rival which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has been tasked with managing reconstruction. “The circumstances are as they were before the war,” Israeli commentator Avi Issacharoff said. “If the blockade continues, the borders remain closed and building is slow in the next six months, Hamas will move towards escalation, and depending on Israel’s response, it could turn into a new war.” Gaza-based analyst Walid al-Mudallal agreed that Hamas was under increasing pressure.  “If it remains frozen in terms of reconstruction, war will be the only option. Hamas will have no choice,” he said.