all4israel, posts by tag: hamas casualties - LiveJournal (original) (raw)
Sep. 23, 2005 19:22 | Updated Sep. 24, 2005 11:57
PA holds Hamas responsible for blast
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH AND AP
JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip
At least 17 dead in explosion at Hamas rally.
The Palestinian Authority issued a statement holding the Hamas responsible for the deaths of 17 Palestinians when a Kassam-laden truck exploded at a Friday night Hamas rally. The statement declared that the Hamas operatives had apparently mishandled explosives and renewed demands that armed groups stop flaunting their weapons in public.
A pickup truck loaded with Kassam rockets blew up during a Hamas rally at the Jebaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least least 17 Palestinians and injuring another 140, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Saturday. A number of senior Hamas operatives were killed in the explosion, which was apparently caused when explosives in the truck were accidentally triggered. Of the dead, at least three were children under 15. Nineteen of the wounded were also minors, the ministry said.
Responding to Hamas accusations blaming Israel for the blast, the IDF issued a statement denying any involvement in the explosion:
"The IDF is not involved in any way in the explosion that occurred this evening in Jebaliya. All attempts to accuse [the IDF] or implicate the army's involvement by certain elements are baseless and unfounded. The IDF views seriously attempts to use the incident as an excuse to attack Israel."
The Hamas, however, launched a series of rocket attacks against Israeli communities in response, wounding five Israelis. The Israeli Air Force retaliated with rockets targeting Hamas weapons storerooms.
The deadly rally appeared to put Hamas on the defensive for the first time since Israel's Gaza pullout, and gave Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas greater leverage to enforce a weapons ban.
The Fatah Central Committee said after a four-hour meeting late Friday that Hamas was responsible for the bloodshed at the rally. Fatah "calls on all Palestinian factions to stop all types of military parades and to keep all kinds of weapons out of residential neighborhoods," the group said in a statement.
The Palestinian Interior Ministry issued a statement calling on Hamas "to shoulder its responsibility for these ... explosions instead of making accusations against others."
Initial reports indicated that Ahmed Randoul, a key figure in Hamas, was either killed or seriously injured in the explosion. Israeli security forces could not confirm this information.
Witnesses said participants, including numerous children, had crowded around the pickup truck carrying terrorists when the explosion went off. Hamas's armed wing, Izzedine al Kassam, is popular with youngsters.
One man, who only gave his first name, Hussam, said he helped pull three men out of the pickup, two dead and one man who was still alive, but had a leg severed. The side of the pickup was charred.
After the blast, men carried bloody body parts and lifeless bodies wrapped in blankets to nearby cars. The injured were rushed to hospital.
At Shifa, doctors had to treat patients on the floor of the emergency room because they ran out of beds. Masked Hamas men wheeled in casualties, including children.