Israeli forces raided central Gaza as Palestinian terrorists fired rockets across the border.
Backed by helicopter gun ships, troops and tanks rolled into Bureij village in the central Gaza Strip early Thursday and surrounded the home of a Hamas field commander. As a standoff ensued, a Palestinian teenager was killed. Witnesses said he was a noncombatant crushed by an Israeli armored vehicle. Israeli forces also wounded two Hamas gunmen who fired on them. There were no immediate reports of Israeli casualties.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Palestinian terrorists fired at least three rockets across the border in defiance of Israel’s decision Wednesday to impose economic sanctions on the territory in response to such salvoes. Aides to Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas administration in Gaza, said he was trying to persuade the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist groups to hold fire.
