Israelis kill teenagers playing with 'toy' rocket launcher
An Israeli missile strike today killed two Palestinian teenagers who were playing with a tube and a petrol-filled bottle in a game imitating militants firing rockets at Israel, the boys’ relatives said.
The deaths brought the number of Palestinians killed since Israel began its offensive into northern Gaza on September 29 to 84, according to an AP count. More than half those killed were militants. Of the civilians, 16 were age 16 and under.
Throughout the raid, which Israel launched to prevent militants from firing home-made Qassam rockets at Israeli towns, Palestinian children have emulated the violence in a series of games, using pieces of wood to represent guns in games of “firefight” and holding simulated funerals.
In recent days, militants have appealed to parents in local radio broadcasts to keep the children off the streets.
This morning, an unmanned Israeli aircraft spotted two suspicious figures on the edge of the Jebaliya refugee camp as they set up a rocket launcher, the army said. The drone spotted a flash, the figures ran away, then returned to the launcher and were struck by the missile, the army said.
The badly disfigured bodies were identified by relatives as Suleiman Abu Foul, 14, and Raed Abu Zeid, 15.
The boys’ friends said the two had been playing on the outskirts of Jebaliya, about 200 yards from an Israeli tank position, using an empty tube and petrol-filled bottles to pretend to launch rockets at Israel, said Suleiman’s brother, Mohammed, 19.
Later today, Israeli soldiers opened fire in the town of Beit Hanoun, and Samah Audeh, 11, was hit in the head by a bullet as she stood by the window of her house, witnesses said.
The Israeli army said Palestinians in the area shot an anti-tank missile at soldiers who returned fire, though it was unclear if this exchange was what led to the girl’ injury.
Relatives said the soldiers had prevented an ambulance from reaching the girl and taking her to a hospital outside the town, forcing her to be treated temporarily at a poorly equipped local clinic before being transferred to a hospital in Gaza City.
The army said the request to evacuate the girl to the hospital was approved when it was received.
Also today, a 13-year-old boy from Jebaliya, who was wounded last week, died of his wounds, hospital officials said.
Despite the army’s massive presence in northern Gaza – some 2,000 troops are patrolling the area in hundreds of armoured vehicles – Palestinians have continued to fire rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements in Gaza and at towns inside Israel.
Palestinians fired three more Qassam rockets today at the Israeli border town of Sderot. The rockets caused no injuries, but one damaged a house, the army said. Israel’s current military operation was vastly expanded after the killing of two Israeli children, age two and four, in Sderot last week.
In separate fighting near the town of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Israeli troops shot at two suspicious figures who were in a closed zone near the border fence with Israel, setting off an explosion and sparking a gun battle that killed one of the Palestinians, the military said. The second person apparently fled, the army said.
Two explosive devices were found near the body.
