Pair Died in Violence Between Jewish State, Fighters With Hamas
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 6, 2008
JERUSALEM, June 5 -- An Israeli man and a Palestinian child were killed Thursday in separate attacks as Israel and Hamas traded fire in and around the Gaza Strip.
The violence came as Israel prepares to consider a Hamas proposal for a cease-fire, and as the Palestinian Authority weighs reviving negotiations with Hamas toward reconciliation and possible new elections.
The Israeli was a 52-year-old civilian. He was killed just before noon when a mortar shell landed at a paint factory in the Nir Oz community, adjacent to Gaza, Israel's Foreign Ministry said. Four people were wounded.
Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Hamas, a radical Islamist movement that has escalated its rocket attacks since taking over Gaza last June, "will be held accountable" for the death. "This situation cannot continue," Baker said.
Hamas asserted responsibility for the strike. "We will confront the occupier with all our means and we will continue striking the Zionist military sites and settlements around Gaza in response to the continued aggression against our people," the group said in a statement.
The Palestinian child, a 4-year-old girl, was killed later in the day when Israeli forces fired a missile at a house in the Gaza city of Khan Younis, Palestinian medical officials said. The Israeli military said it was targeting a Palestinian fighter.
The girl's mother was injured in the attack.
Israel has been contemplating a cease-fire offer made by Hamas through intermediaries in Egypt. The Israeli security cabinet is expected to consider the proposal at a meeting Sunday. In addition, negotiators have been discussing the possibility of a prisoner exchange. Hamas, which is holding an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid in June 2006, wants hundreds of Palestinians released in exchange for his safe return.
If Israel rejects the cease-fire, another option would be a wide-scale invasion of Gaza aimed at toppling Hamas.
"We are not eager for a military operation," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters in Washington. "But we are not shying away from one."
Olmert has been in Washington this week, meeting with U.S. officials, including President Bush. While peace talks with the Palestinians have been on the agenda, the trip has been dominated by discussion of how to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
With negotiations between Israel and the moderate Palestinian leadership in a stalemate, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appeared to extend an olive branch to Hamas on Wednesday, saying it was time for the rival factions to talk. Any rapprochement with Hamas would likely kill the already slim chances for a deal between the Palestinian Authority, which holds sway in the West Bank, and Israel.
"Let us hold a national and comprehensive dialogue . . . to end the national schism which has inflicted severe damage on our cause and more suffering on the Palestinian people," Abbas said in televised remarks.
Hamas leaders have signaled that they are ready. "We have to encourage the people. We have to dry their wounds. We have to clean their tears and to heal their pain," Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, said in a speech in Gaza City on Thursday.
It has been nearly a year since Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, ousted forces loyal to Abbas from Gaza and took control of the territory following a failed attempt at a power-sharing government. Since then, fighters aligned with Hamas have intensified their campaign against Israeli targets near the narrow coastal strip. Israel, meanwhile, has steadily tightened an economic embargo on Gaza, leading to widespread shortages of fuel, electricity and other basic goods.
Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a petition by human rights groups that challenged the legality of the fuel restrictions on the grounds that Israel is not meeting its obligations to Gaza's 1.5 million people.
Special correspondent Islam Abdulkarim in Gaza City contributed to this report.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.