By Hanan Awarekeh
 
Gaza, 2008 Jan 15, Al-Manar
 
It's another day of blood baths in occupied Palestine. Seventeen Palestinians, including a child, were martyred by Zionist occupation troops on Tuesday in the latest army operation in the Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.

At least six of the martyrs were resistance fighters, they said. One of the martyrs was identified as Houssam Zahhar, the son of the Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar. The identities of the others were not immediately known. It is Zahhar's second son to be martyred during confrontations against occupation soldiers.
 
The martyrs were hit in the neighborhood of Al-Zeitun in eastern Gaza City during an operation in which there was heavy exchange of fire between Israeli occupation soldiers and Palestinian resistance fighters. At least 45 other Palestinians were wounded as a result.
 
A Zionist army spokeswoman claimed the troops opened fire on a group of armed Palestinians and a car with armed men during the operation.

Zionist occupation tanks were also carrying out another operation near the town of Beit Hanun in the north of the Gaza Strip.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
 
The Zionist occupation army launches near-daily air and ground raids in Gaza aiming to stop the near-daily firing of rockets and mortars from the Strip into the occupied territories.

Since the two sides formally relaunched so-called ‘peace talks’ in late November at a US conference, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Zionist fire in Gaza.
 
Tuesday's operation came a day after top Zionist and Palestinian negotiators began talks on the thorniest issues at the heart of the conflict - borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees.
 
Meanwhile, a Zionist settler was killed in southern occupied territories by bullets fired from the Gaza Strip. In a statement in Gaza, the armed wing of Hamas, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, took responsibility for the attack. According to Zionist media, the slain worker was a foreign volunteer from Ecuador South America working in the fields of the Ein Hashlosha kibbutz located near the coastal territory.