4 militants killed in Gaza fighting
JERUSALEM -- Four Palestinian militants were shot and killed in the Gaza Strip early yesterday after Israeli soldiers surrounded a senior militant's house and were met with a barrage of gunfire, setting off an intense firefight, Israeli and Palestinian security officials said.
Later in the day, four Israeli soldiers were injured, one critically, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem when a Palestinian militant who they were trying to arrest surprised them by opening fire at close range from a hiding place, an Israeli military spokesman said. The militant was subsequently killed, he said.
An Israeli military spokesman and Palestinian security officials said that the Gaza raid targeted Yasser Abu Aesh, a senior member of Islamic Jihad who lost both legs and an arm about two years ago when explosives he was carrying detonated.
Abu Aesh, who the Israeli military spokesman said was behind numerous attacks on Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip, lived much of his life in hiding, Palestinian security officials said. But he emerged for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha to visit his family in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said. Israeli troops apparently were tipped off early yesterday morning, they said.
At about 3:30 a.m., Palestinian security officials and witnesses said, Israeli jeeps, armored personnel carriers, and tanks, supported by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, surrounded the family's house. The Israeli military spokesman said the goal was to arrest Abu Aesh, "but when the Israeli force entered the house in which he was hiding, several Palestinian gunmen opened fire" and the soldiers returned fire. Palestinian witnesses said that Israelis fired three missiles at the house and began bulldozing it as the firefight continued.
The military spokesman said Abu Aesh was shot and killed after throwing a grenade at advancing soldiers. Soldiers also killed two gunmen who fired at them, the spokesman said. Palestinians identified one as Abu Aesh's brother, Hussein, who also was a member of Islamic Jihad.
Palestinian security officials and hospital authorities identified the other dead militants as Majdi Khatib, head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Rafah, and Bahaa Judah, a member of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas.
The military spokesman said that they knew of only three people who were killed in the incident -- Yasser Abu Aesh, Khatib, and another gunman. One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the raid, he said.
At about noon, the military spokesman said, soldiers entered the Aida refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, to arrest another senior Palestinian militant, Mohammed Abu Uda of Hamas. The spokesman said that Abu Uda was being sought because he had dispatched the Palestinian suicide bomber who attacked a crowded bus in central Jerusalem last Thursday, killing 11 people and himself.
The spokesman said that Abu Uda was hiding inside a building and surprised soldiers who were searching for him by opening fire, injuring four. Other soldiers discovered Abu Uda, shot and killed him, and then, fearing booby traps, blew up his hiding place with him inside it.
A spokeswoman at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem said that one of the soldiers was in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head.
