Israeli tanks advance toward
northern Gaza

GAZA (PL).—This Wednesday Israeli tanks penetrated dozens of meters further into the territory of the Gaza Strip via the Erez border post and took up positions in the former settlements of Elei Sanai and Nisanit, witnesses affirm.

Some 20 armored vehicles advanced and fired their artillery in the middle of the night, in keeping with the measures of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, designed to intensify the attacks on Palestinian positions, military sources confirmed.

During the day there were light confrontations between the Tel Aviv troops and members of the Palestinian National Authority resistance in Beit Hanun, where the army stormed various houses and detained those inside.

An army communiqué stated that the attacks on government dependencies and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) infrastructure will continue as part of the Summer Rain campaign, which completed its eighth day yesterday.

The intensification of the aggression took place after – for the second day running – a homemade Palestinian rocket landed in a sports ground in the southern Israeli city of Ashkalon, without causing any deaths or injuries, witnesses inform.

Prime Minister Olmert threatened that his government would apply far-reaching and unprecedented military measures if the action was repeated.

On the other hand, an Israeli human rights organization condemned Tel Aviv’s refusal to allow Palestinian families to visit their loved ones in its prisons and filed a suit before the Supreme Court against the Israeli Prison Service.

More than 9,000 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children, are detained in Israeli penitentiaries, many of them innocent and subjected to psychological and physical torture, according to humanitarian organizations.