By Zakaria Al-Telimis, KUNA
Gaza : Armed hostilities between heavily-armed Israeli forces and ill-equipped Palestinian guerrillas resumed on medium scale in Gaza Strip on Monday.
Witnesses said Israeli gunship helicopters fired a rocket in the direction of a group of Palestinians in the town of Bait Hanoun in the north of the strip, wounding several of them.
Over the night, the multi-winged aircraft raided a carpentry store in the same town. The place was set alight and several people were wounded in the strike.
A spokesman of the Israeli Army said two missiles were fired from the north of the strip in the direction of the Israeli town of Sderot in the south of Israel. The rockets exploded in the town, he said without mentioning losses.
In the Israeli town of Ashkelon, a Grad missile crashed into a building inflicting injuries and some damage, he said.
Meanwhile, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah, said its gunners targetted a concentration of Israeli troops with four 60-mm mortar shells east of Al-Maghazi in the center of the strip over the night.
Another Palestinian faction, the Battalions of Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa, the military arm of the Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said it was responsible for firing mortar shells on an Israeli military emplacement in Kissuvim. The gunners who fired the shells returned safely to base, it said.
At a related level, Israeli Prime Mininster Ehud Olmert was quoted by Israel Radio as saying Tel Aviv “reserved the right” to continue the military operations against Hamas and the other Palestinian factions in Gaza.
Olmert added that his leadership would not tolerate further missile attacks on southern Israel.
The renewed violence came after dramatic escalation of Israeli attacks on Gazan towns, taking the lives of more than 100 people, including many children, women and elderly. The random attacks and killing of civilians drew condemnation from the United Nations, Arab and foreign states.