Elderly man crushed to death after IDF demolishes Gaza home

IDF tanks and armored bulldozers pushed into the Gaza Strip early Monday to demolish what the army called militant gunposts, and Palestinian sources said an elderly Palestinian was crushed to death when the forces demolished his home in Khan Yunis.

Palestinian medics and witnesses said 70-year-old Mahmoud
Khala Sallah was inside a building when it was knocked down. They were unsure if the army could have been aware he was there.

Israel Radio said the victim was wheelchair-bound.

The army said it had removed flimsy shacks and uncompleted structures, but no inhabited buildings in the raid near the town of Khan Yunis.

Meanwhile, IDF troops arrested four wanted Palestinians during the night Sunday. Two men were arrested in Hebron, one was nabbed in Doha, east of Bethlehem, and a Hamas operative was arrested near Ramallah.

Elsewhere, in the West Bank, Palestinians opened fire on an IDF force near Kabatiya and in a separate incident, militants opened fire on troops in Ramallah. No injuries were reported in either of the incidents.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/450372.html

A man in his 70s died when Israeli troops demolished a building where he was living in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources say.
They say the death occurred when tanks and bulldozers began removing buildings near the town of Khan Yunis at the southern end of the strip.

The Israeli army said it was removing flimsy shacks and unfinished buildings.

Palestinian witnesses said it was possible that the troops were unaware that the man was inside the building.

He apparently did not hear calls to evacuate and was found dead in rubble shortly after the demolition.

An Israeli military spokesman said the army was investigating the reports.

Israel has demolished several hundred houses in the West Bank and Gaza since it began the policy of destroying the homes of Palestinian militants in August 2002.

However, the buildings destroyed in the current operation were used as cover for Palestinian snipers and had been "abandoned", the Israeli army said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3885725.stm


An elderly handicapped Palestinian has been crushed to death when Israeli occupation troops demolished his home in the southern occupied Gaza Strip.



Ibrahim Khalafala, 75, was killed early on Monday during an invasion in the town of Khan Yunis when occupation soldiers razed his home while he was still inside, said Palestinian medical and security sources.

An Israeli military spokesman said that the forces had destroyed some "abandoned houses" and vegetation in the area, which he claimed served as cover for Palestinian snipers.

West Bank invasion

Occupation soldiers also invaded a town near the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, blowing up the home of a Palestinian activist wanted for a string of resistance attacks.

Troops demolished the house of Nasr Hidhjimiah, the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the town of Kabatiyeh, said witnesses and military sources.

Fifteen people were living in his two-storey house which was destroyed.

An Israeli military spokesman said the demolition sent a "message to terrorists and their accomplices, that there is a price to pay for their acts" and that the army would continue to hit them.

Since August 2002 the army has dynamited hundreds of houses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A further 2,000 houses have been razed "for security reasons" mainly in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip, leaving thousands of civilians homeless.

The policy has been denounced by humanitarian organisations as a form of collective punishment.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FB99DB4C-3DFC-4D08-8D1A-FA7C4C82A298.htm