Agence France-Presse GAZA CITY: Israeli troops staged their first ground operation in the Gaza Strip Tuesday since pulling out of the territory last year, killing three Islamic Jihad militants and a Palestinian policeman. Three other militants were also killed in the occupied West Bank overnight, making it the deadliest spike in violence since the radical Islamist movement Hamas came to power in the Palestinian territories in March. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said the deaths would only feed the cycle of violence as he appealed to the international community to rein in Israel. Jihad said three fighters were killed in northern Gaza in an ambush by an Israeli special forces unit, disguised in Palestinian clothing, as the militants prepared to fire rockets across the border toward the city of Ashkelon. The extremist faction, behind the last seven suicide attacks inside Israel, vowed to exact a terrible revenge for the deaths which brought the overall toll since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000 to 5,074. This new crime of the occupation... will not pass without a terrible and violent response in the heart of the Zionist entity, the group said in a statement. Jihad said other members of its armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, were called to the scene and then became embroiled in a gun battle with Israeli troops for more than an hour. Security sources said the fourth victim was a member of the Palestinian police who appeared to have been caught up in the firing. Nine other people were wounded, including two journalists and an ambulance driver, medical sources said. Since pulling troops out of Gaza after a 38-year occupation last September, the Israeli military has sought to combat repeated rocket firing with air strikes and shelling from artillery posts and tanks parked next to the border. However the army confirmed that troops had re-entered the territory during the overnight operation and summoned air support. Early this morning, an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) force operating in the Gaza Strip identified a terror cell in the northern Gaza Strip attempting to launch projectile rockets at Israel, a statement from the military said. The force, aided by the IAF (air force), opened fire at the cell and an exchange of gunfire ensued as the terrorists fired back. Army chiefs have previously cautioned against sending troops back into Gaza, but Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a cabinet meeting that all options would be considered as long as militants continued to fire missiles. We will continue our operations by air, sea and land in order to put an end to the rocket launching, said Peretz. In separate incidents in the northern West Bank two members of another armed Palestinian faction, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, were killed while exchanging gunfire with Israeli forces at Kabatiya, near Tulkarem, and the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. A third man, a member of the Al-Quds Brigade, died during an Israeli incursion at Kabatiya. Abbas, whose security forces have done little to prevent the rocket attacks from Gaza, called on the international community to intervene with Israel. The pursuit of political assassinations is a serious escalation [that] will only destabilize and worsen the situation in the region, a statement from his office said. The international community, particularly the American administration should intervene immediately to put an end to these Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, he added.
