GAZA: Palestinians bury their dead after Israeli army ends incursion into Gaza

Several hundreds mourners take to the streets of Gaza in funeral processions to bury the Palestinians who were killed in clashes with Israeli army. Palestinians in Gaza buried their dead on Friday (July 06) after a bloody day of battles with the Israeli army in Gaza. Several hundred Palestinians, including gunmen and members of Hamas security forces, marched in a funeral procession through the streets of Gaza City for the 11 Palestinians, most of them militants, who were killed in clashes with Israeli troops. Many masked militants amongst the mourners, fired their rifles in the air and chanted calls for revenge as they laid their loved ones to rest. The Israeli army - troops and tanks - pulled out of the outskirts of Gaza city earlier on Friday, after an incursion into the area close to the al-Maghazi refugee camp. During fighting on Thursday nine members of the Islamist Hamas group were killed, along with one from Islamic Jihad, and one civilian. An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers had carried out a routine raid about a kilometre (half-mile) inside Gaza to search for militants, including those involved in rocket attacks against Israel, and to find tunnels used to smuggle weapons. Palestinian medics said 20 Palestinians, including children, were wounded during clashes. A Hamas cameraman who was injured by what witnesses said was a tank shell, also took shots in the legs as he lay on the ground. Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, prime minister of a unity government dismissed by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, condemned what he called Israel's "military escalation" and "criminal massacre". Haniyeh said Palestinian gunmen had the right to respond. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005 but has pressed ahead with periodic raids aimed at halting rocket fire at the Jewish state, since Hamas's rout of Western-backed Abbas's Fatah group last month.

ITN Source | July 6, 2007

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