Israeli military forces raided Monday night Beit Hanun, an area under full Palestinian control, in the northern Gaza Strip, destroying Palestinian border police positions with bulldozers, according to Palestinian witnesses, cited by AFP.
In a parallel attack, Israeli helicopter gunships struck the Palestinian locality of Dir el-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses said.
The air strike destroyed positions which served as a training center for Force 17, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's elite guard unit, and also a nearby mosque, the same sources said.
Three Palestinian civilians were also wounded, Palestinian medical sources added.
Israeli tanks also shot at buildings in the Palestinian area of Rafah on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, witnesses said.
Israeli military sources confirmed a fresh offensive on the Gaza Strip Monday evening, but did not comment further.
The armored assault on Beit Hanun was the second Israeli ground incursion in five days on an area under full Palestinian security and administrative control, also known as Zone A according to peace agreements signed with Israel since 1993.
It was also the second such offensive since the start of the Palestinian uprising in late September.
The Israeli raids came after five mortar bombs were fired Monday night on the Israeli town of Sderot, to the east of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesperson Ranaan Gissin had threatened the Palestinian Authority (PA) following the mortar shelling.
"We will not tolerate this type of action and the proper response will come," he added. "There is a price to be paid for whatever action they take."
He accused the PA of orchestrating the mortar shillings.
But the PA denied any involvement in the pounding of Sderot, said the agency.
"These shells were fired by groups who escape the control of the Authority," said Samir Rantissi, a PA spokesman.
The Palestinians said Israel had injured three Palestinian security agents with tank fire in Beit Hanun in an initial response to the mortar attack.
Two Palestinians were also injured in an Israeli attack on West bank city of Hebron earlier, said MBC satellite channel late Monday.
ISRAELI SOLDIER STABBED IN WEST BANK
An Israeli soldier was stabbed Monday night at a roadblock near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, a military spokesman said, according to AFP.
The assailant was shot down by other Israeli soldiers posted at the roadblock, military radio said.
The victim of the stabbing was lightly injured and taken to an Israeli hospital in the region, the spokesman added.
SECURITY MEETING NOT LIKELY
Meanwhile, Israel's overnight air force raid deep in Lebanon that killed a Syrian soldier and wounded four others, and the release of a member of the Islamic Hamas movement by the Palestinian Authority, slimmed chances for a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs slated to take place late Monday, reported Haaretz, citing Israel's Army Radio.
Head of the Shin Bet secret service, Avi Dichter, and the heads of the Israeli army's central and southern front commands, the overall commanders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were scheduled to participate in the meeting, as well as the PA's West Bank Preventative Security service commander Jibril Rjoub and PA Intelligence chief Amin Hindi, said the radio report.
The Palestinian Authority said that it had released Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, number one on Israel's most wanted list, from prison but said he remained under their "control."
"Mohammed Deif has been released and transferred from his prison cell to a safe place where he cannot be reached by the Israeli authorities," Rantissi has told AFP.
"He is being held for Palestinian security reasons under a form of house arrest. He is not free and he can go back to prison any time we feel it is necessary," he added.
Deif, head of Hamas's armed wing the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, is wanted by Israel as the suspected mastermind of a string of deadly anti-Israeli bombings.
Israeli media reported Monday that Israeli and Palestinian security official will meet later in the day.
However, Gaza Strip general security chief Abdel Razeq al-Majeida said Monday there were no preparations for a new security meeting with Israel.
"So far, we have not been informed about the meeting and there are no preparations for it," he told Voice of Palestine radio, cited by AFP.
Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs last held talks at a US-hosted meeting on Wednesday.
PALESTINIAN POLICE: ISRAELI SNIPER INJURES FATEH ACTIVIST IN HEBRON
An Israeli sniper shot and injured an activist from Fateh movement in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron on Monday, Palestinian police said, cited by AFP.
Abdel Hadi al-Natchi, 32, was shot as he was about to get into his car in an area in the north of the divided city that is under full Palestinian control, they said.
Natchi, who residents said had been wanted by Israel for several years, was moderately injured in the hand, according to police and hospital officials.
The Palestinians have accused Israel of "assassinating" around 20 militants, including members of Fateh and the Palestinian security forces as well as activists Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it suspects of anti-Israeli attacks during the near seven-month wave of violence in the region.
ISRAELI TROOPS CLAMP TIGHT BLOCKADE AROUND QALQILYA
The Israeli army overnight clamped a tight blockade around the West Bank town of Qalqilyah, which military officials believe served as the base for weekend bombings in the nearby Israeli city of Kfar Saba and at a produce stand near the Palestinian town, army radio reported Monday, cited by Haaretz.
The army will allow residents to leave Qalqilyah only for "humanitarian purposes," military officials said.
A pipe bomb exploded near an Israeli army checkpoint to the north of Qalqilya Sunday.
The army said no injuries were reported from the blast, which occurred near the Green Line dividing Israel and the West Bank, a few kilometers (miles) from the Israeli town of Kfar Saba, the scene of twin pipe-bomb explosions on Saturday evening that left one person injured.
Military sources said the Qalqilya explosion was also caused by a pipe bomb.
On March 28, two Jewish teenagers were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a service station near Kfar Saba, one of a spate of bomb attacks that triggered massive retaliatory strikes by Israel on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A second bomb exploded near an Israeli army convoy near the Jewish settlement of Hermesh southwest of Jenin in the northern West Bank, the army said, adding that Palestinians shot at convoy, and the army returned fire.
In the Gaza Strip late Sunday, the Israeli army reported four explosions "presumed to be mortar shells" near the settlement of Netzer Hazani, said AFP.
An army spokesman said; "four explosions occurred near the settlement without causing injury. They were apparently mortar shells."
The incident occurred in the Gush Katif settlement area, the agency added.
The spokesman also reported Molotov cocktails thrown at an army position at Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip near the border with Egypt.
Earlier in the Gaza Strip, three Palestinians, including a six-year-old girl, were injured by shrapnel when an Israeli tank fired a shell on the Rafah refugee camp, added the agency.
A Palestinian journalist, Zakaryah Abu Harbit, was injured by an exploding tank shell near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, during an exchange of fire between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, witnesses told the agency.
Abu Harbit, 25, a reporter for the local Ramatan agency, was injured by a shell splinter and taken to the hospital, but his life was not in any danger, hospital sources said.
The Israeli army reported four shooting incidents in Rafah and the Neve Dekalim settlement in the southern Gaza Strip during the night following the raid on Rafah that left injured 46 Palestinians and destroyed houses, shops and Palestinian security positions.
Egyptian medical and security sources said a stray Israeli bullet injured a young Egyptian woman in the shoulder late Saturday while she was in her courtyard around 500 meters (550 yards) from the border with the Gaza Strip, AFP added.
In other incidents, near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, Palestinian gunmen reportedly opened fire on an Israeli army patrol on a road used by Jewish settlers.
The army said it did not fire back, but Palestinian sources said the army then closed the road and searched nearby Palestinian homes looking for gunmen.
Four Palestinians, including a 65-year-old woman, were injured Sunday night in Hebron, by Israeli army fire, witnesses said.
The elderly woman and a boy and girl, both 17, were wounded when tank shells hit a house in the Palestinian-controlled Abu Sneinah neighborhood, AFP said.
A fourth Palestinian was hit by Israeli bullets in the center of Hebron.
Earlier, a Jewish settler's car was hit by Palestinian gunfire, although no one was hurt.
An Israeli military spokesperson said the "soldiers had responded with light fire" towards Abu Sneinah where the gunfire had originated.
Clashes erupted during the day between dozens of young stonethrowing children and soldiers at an Israeli army checkpoint who fired at them with rubber bullets, witnesses said.
No one was injured in the confrontation during which the children also burnt tires, they said - Albawaba.com
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