Photo: IRIB

By Mohamad Shmaysani  
 
Gaza, 2008 Jan 18, Al-Manar
 
Only the names of martyrs change in occupied Palestine. The Palestinians continue to bleed in Gaza and the Zionist regime has vowed to continue spilling that blood. Friday morning was business as usual for the Zionist army, a new air raid and a new Palestinian martyr. Friday's strike targeted Jabalia which offered the 33nd Palestinian martyr since Tuesday's Israeli incursion into Gaza. His name was Ismail Radwan and the missile that targeted his car also injured four Palestinians, one of them severely. Zionist regime's air strikes killed at least seven Palestinians, including a mother and child, in the Gaza Strip late on Thursday (January 17). The escalation in violence prompted Palestinian leaders to warn that renewed peace talks were at stake.

"The Zionist  raids and military escalations aim to deliver a blow to the Palestinian-Zionist regime's negotiations," Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas, said.

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal said in Damascus that US President George W. Bush's eight-day Middle East tour "gave cover to this massacre," and he called on the Palestinian president to halt the "absurd" peace talks with the Zionist occupation regime.
 
The latest attack on Thursday hit a Hamas military outpost in Gaza City killing two fighters, and wounding three others. The martyrs were identified as "Ashraf Ashi" and "Mahmoud Banna" from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The two other air strikes targeted cars in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. One of the air strikes killed Raed Abu al-Foul, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), his wife and their child. The Zionist regime's army said the third air strike targeted a group of resistance fighters who had just fired rockets into southern occupied territories. There were also civilians among the casualties.
 
Zionist Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave no indication he might order a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip, but he wanted the world to believe that "the Zionist regime sought to avoid harming Palestinian civilians."

The Gaza Strip was sealed off Friday on the orders of Zionist war minister Ehud Barak. In announcing the closure of all border crossings between occupied territories and Gaza, a war  ministry official said it would remain in effect for several days and would affect both commercial traffic and individual travelers.

"IDF (Israeli Occupation Force, IOF) will continue its operations, continuous and decisive, and will deepen it in order to continue hitting those who are carrying out the firing, until the firing of Qassams will cease," Barak said. However, Islamic Resistance factions vowed to continue firing rockets at Israeli settlements as long as the Zionist occupation regime  continues to commit massacres against Palestinians.
 
Further to the north, Zionist  occupation troops killed a local commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades resistance group early on Friday in the northern West Bank town of Nablus. Ahmed Sanakrah was assassinated in the Balata refugee camp by an Zionist regime's special forces unit that also arrested three members of the group linked to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.