UPDATED ON:
Saturday, February 07, 2009
15:36 Mecca time, 12:36 GMT
News Middle East
Israeli air raids hit Gaza

Palestinian fighters fired two rockets into southern Israel before the air raids [AFP]

Israel has launched several air raids against targets in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, causing damage but no injuries, Palestinian security sources say.

The attacks targeted "open areas" near the town of Rafah and tunnels along the border with Egypt, residents said.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that the "Israeli air force intervened in the Gaza Strip" late on Friday.

"Our planes attacked four tunnels that were dug under the border with Egypt and used for weapons smuggling," the spokesman told the AFP news agency.

"An arms depot was also targeted and the explosives that were stocked there exploded," he said.

The raids came hours after Palestinian fighters fired two rockets at southern Israel without causing damage or deaths, according to a military spokesman.

Shalit talks fail

The Israeli raids came after reports that indirect talks between Israel and Hamas over a prisoner swap to free Gilad Shalit, a captured Israeli soldier, had failed.

Shalit was captured by Gaza groups in a 2006 cross-border raid.

Osama al-Muzaini, a Hamas official who is involved in the negotiations, said on Friday that the talks had shown little progress and that any claims by Israel that progress had been made were "election-motivated".

"There has been no progress in the [Shalit] file for several months and that is because [Israel] remained unwilling to pay the price," he told the Reuters news agency.

Israeli report

Muzini was responding to a report published on the website of Israel's Haaretz newspaper quoting unnamed Israeli officials as saying significant progress had been made in truce talks and Shalif's freedom.

Muzaini did not mention where the talks had been held or who led the mediation.

Hamas has demanded the release of 1,400 prisoners in exchange for Shalit.

Muzaini said Israel had only agreed to 71 names from the list of 450 long-serving prisoners Hamas had proposed more than a year ago.

 Source: Agencies
 
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Feedback Number of comments : 2
 
John
United States
07/02/2009
Israeli air strikes hit Gaza
I would really like to see peace come to the area, at which time I would support assistance to rebuild Palestine including increasing available land by adding to the coast line like the UAE Palm Island project. But, soon the Palestinians need to understand that cowards hiding under black headbands shooting rockets or weapons into Israel is going to have one result - a massive retaliation that will escalate to the annihilation of everything living in the Gaza strip. The clock is ticking.

john dixon
United States
06/02/2009
Title of Story
How come every time an article is printed concerning rockets being fired between Israel and Hamas the headline always reads "Israel fires into Gaza", and only later, at the end of the story do we find out that Israel fired on Gaza only after Hamas fired on Israel? Why doesn't the story read "Hamas fires on Israel - Israel fires back". That would be true and unbiased reporting.

 
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