Israeli tanks and troops pushed just inside central Gaza on Wednesday, killing five Palestinians, including two from Hamas.
Israeli military officials said the forces came under fire from gunmen at the incursion point, near the area where Islamic gunmen ambushed an Israeli border post this month. Israeli troops in the West Bank killed two more Palestinian gunmen, making the day one of the deadliest in months between Israel and Islamic groups in the territories.
Meanwhile, Israel allowed Palestinians with severe health problems and foreign-passport holders to leave Gaza in a flight that reflected the humanitarian challenges that have arisen in the days since Hamas’ violent takeover of the strip.
The chaotic scene at the Erez Crossing and the stepped-up Israeli military operations, which included Apache helicopter strikes on sites near Erez used Wednesday by Palestinians to fire at least six rockets into Israel, highlighted the complexities that Israeli and Palestinian officials face in keeping the situation in the strip from becoming a humanitarian crisis.
Hamas’ quick military conquest has split the Palestinian Authority and further divided two territories envisioned as the cornerstones of a future Palestinian state. Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 Middle East War. It evacuated Israeli settlements and soldiers from Gaza in the fall of 2005.
Scores of Palestinians remain caught at the Erez Crossing, which has almost been destroyed by looters since Hamas’ takeover. Many of those at the crossing live in the West Bank but have been unable to return home because Israel has kept crossings effectively closed.
“We don’t have anything to do with politics,” said Talal Jabber, 37, an agricultural engineer from the West Bank city of Tulkarem, who traveled to Gaza with Israeli permission as part of a Palestinian government delegation.
The factional fighting that culminated in Hamas’ victory began during Jabber’s visit, and he has lived in growing squalor inside the tunnel crossing for several days. Israeli officials delivered food and water Wednesday to approximately 60 people who would rather wait at the crossing than return to Gaza City.
Israel’s new defense minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the military Wednesday to allow Palestinians suffering from serious illness or wounds from the recent factional fighting to enter Israel for treatment. The decision came as Israel’s High Court prepared to hear a petition filed by Israeli human-rights groups challenging the crossing closures on behalf of ill Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli military said nine Palestinians passed through this crossing Wednesday to seek medical care in Israel. Among them was a 17-year-old with leukemia who had been entering Israel regularly for treatment before Hamas took control. Others suffered injuries during recent fighting.
Israel also began allowing Palestinians holding foreign passports to leave Gaza at the request of their embassies. On Wednesday, about 200 people with Russian and Ukrainian passports, most of them women and children, passed through the crossings after an hours-long wait.
Israeli officials said plans were being made to allow scores of Palestinians holding U.S. passports to leave Gaza soon.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at the Islamic militants of Hamas on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to build an “empire of darkness” in Gaza and pledging he would not negotiate with the “murderous terrorists,” The Associated Press reported.
Addressing Palestinians for the first time since Hamas seized control of Gaza last week, Abbas said Hamas had attacked “national symbols” during the fighting in the coastal territory, including ransacking the house of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni talked by telephone Wednesday with Salam Fayyad, the prime minister named by Abbas to head a new Cabinet that excludes Hamas, AP reported. It was the first direct contact between Israel and the new government.
“The establishment [of the new administration] facilitates progress on … the peace process,” a Foreign Ministry statement quoted Livni as saying.
