IAF kills four Hamas men in Gaza strike

In separate incident, Palestinians hurt when missile meant for terrorists accidentally hits home.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, AP
gaza strike 224 (photo credit: AP [file])
gaza strike 224
(photo credit: AP [file])
The IAF carried out an air strike on a Hamas position in southern Gaza late Tuesday. Rescue workers said at least four Hamas men were killed in the strike on a police station. In an earlier incident, the IDF fired a missile that hit a house in northern Gaza, wounding at least three people. The IDF said it was aiming at a rocket squad, but the missile misfired and hit the house. The strike came after 10 mortars were fired at an Israeli town near Gaza. One of the mortars hit very close to a house, causing it to catch fire, and a number of people were treated for shock. Two Kassam rockets also struck the western Negev on Tuesday evening, but did not cause any casualties or damage. Meanwhile, an Egyptian police official announced that three Palestinians arrested earlier this month in a secret border tunnel linking Gaza and Egypt are members of an al-Qaida-inspired group that had planned to carry out suicide attacks in Israel. The official said the men were members of the Palestinian terrorist group Army of Islam, which had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of captured IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit and had held BBC correspondent Alan Johnston. The police official identified the men as Ibrahim Ahmed, 42, Hassaan Youssef, 21, and Khaled Essam, 22. A fourth man was believed to have escaped back to Gaza. One of the three arrested, Youssef, was wearing a suicide belt at the time of the police raid on the tunnel. The group was believed to be in contact with an Egyptian driver who was to drive the men to central Sinai, from where they were to make their way to Israel to carry out suicide attacks in a coastal Israeli city, the official said, without providing more details. The Palestinians were arrested in a tunnel south of the Rafah border crossing at Al-Dohnia, as they were making their way from Gaza to Egypt.