Entered into the database on Monday, January 02nd, 2006 @ 17:01:43 MST
Israeli aircraft have struck the Gaza Strip repeatedly, targeting what
the army says are roads and a building used by Palestinian resistance fighters
firing rockets into the Jewish state. The Israeli occupation army said it had "targeted a building used by the
al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades terror organisation". The brigades are part of Fatah, the movement of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian
president. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Missiles also struck roads in the northern Gaza Strip that Israel said were
used by armed groups on their way to fire rockets across the border. "The objective of targeting these access routes is to prevent the passage
of terrorists," an Israeli army statement said on Monday. The al-Aqsa group has been behind much of the firing of makeshift rockets from
the Gaza Strip into Israel that prompted the Israeli declaration of a "no-go"
zone in northern Gaza last week. Violence has been on the increase since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September
after 38 years of occupation. Resistance groups have said that as of 1 January, they are no longer abiding
by a promise they made to follow a "period of calm". They say rocket
attacks are a response to Israeli military actions in Gaza and the occupied
West Bank. Abbas has appealed to the factions to exercise restraint. Israel rules out talks
on Palestinian statehood until the groups are disarmed, a process that is meant
to start under a US-backed peace plan. But Israel has failed to meet its own promise under the plan to freeze settlement
building in the West Bank. Protest Meanwhile, about 200 police officers stormed government offices in the southern
Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Monday to protest at the failure of the Palestinian
Authority (PA) to fight growing lawlessness, witnesses said. The incident was the latest sign of chaos in Gaza, which has suffered growing
internal unrest recently. Firing into the air as they ran through the streets, the police officers raided
government offices, courthouses, an election office and the municipality building
in Rafah. They smashed windows at the Interior Ministry building and forced the staff
to leave. One officer said: "We are calling on all officers to take off their uniforms
because the Palestinian Authority has tied the hands of policemen, preventing
us from implementing law and order."
