Israeli jets bomb Gaza Strip after deadly attacks

AFP - Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip and raided the Egyptian border, killing militants blamed for coordinated gun, grenade and bomb attacks that left eight Israelis dead.

Six Israeli civilians -- including two women -- as well as a soldier and a police officer died after the attacks Thursday in the desert near the Red Sea resort of Eilat. At least 26 others were injured.

Within hours of the attacks, Israel took aim at the Gaza-based militant group it accused of responsibility, launching air raids that killed six in the southern city of Rafah, medics said.

Four of the dead were top members of the Popular Resistance Committees, but one was a toddler, they said. The identity of the sixth was unclear.

The PRC confirmed its leader and several others had been killed in the Rafah strike, and vowed bitter revenge "against everything and everyone".

An Egyptian police officer and two conscripts were then killed when an Israeli plane fired a rocket near the border at militants it was tracking after the attacks near Eilat, Egyptian security officials said.

Two policemen were wounded in the air raid, they said.

"If terror organisations think they can harm our citizens and get away with it, they will soon learn how wrong they are," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.

"We will make them pay a price, a very heavy price."

World leaders were quick to condemn the violence, with the White House denouncing the "brutal terrorist attacks" and UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressing grave concern about an "escalation" of violence in the region.

The Israeli reprisals came after gunmen near Eilat ambushed two buses and a car, detonated a bomb under a military jeep, and fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at another vehicle.

Major General Tal Russo, head of the Israeli army's southern command, said the first attack saw three militants armed with explosives, guns and grenades open fire on a bus packed with passengers heading to Eilat.

They fled the scene and shortly afterwards, detonated a roadside bomb which hit a military vehicle that was rushing to the scene of the first attack, Israeli officials said.

They then opened fire on a second bus and a car, killing the bus driver.

In another incident, an RPG was fired at cars in the area, killing five.

Israeli troops quickly locked down the area and engaged in a running gunbattle with the militants that ended with seven of the attackers killed, Russo told reporters.

Media reports suggested up to 20 militants may have been involved in the spate of attacks, some of whom were believed to have fled into Egypt's Sinai peninsula. The military had no official comment on the number involved.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were Palestinians from Gaza who had reached Israel via Sinai.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak also said the attacks originated in Gaza, and vowed "to act against them with all our strength and determination".

However, the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers issued a statement denying any involvement in the bloodshed.

Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza overnight killing a teenager and wounding 17 people, Palestinian medical sources said. An Israeli military spokesman refused to confirm or deny that there were several raids.

Several hours after the air strike on Rafah, the army said Gaza militants fired four rockets into southern Israel, three of which were intercepted by the Jewish state's anti-missile Iron Dome system.

AP - Gunmen who crossed from the Egyptian desert launched a series of attacks Thursday in southern Israel, killing seven people and threatening to destabilize a volatile border region that includes the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

Israel blamed an armed Palestinian group from neighboring Gaza. Israeli forces killed five of the gunmen along the border with Egypt, the military said, and later launched an airstrike inside Gaza that killed five other militants from the same group as well as a child.

The Israeli military said three of the dead men in Gaza had been involved in planning the attack.

Gunfire continued on both sides of the border late into the evening. After nightfall, Israel’s “Iron Dome” anti-missile system intercepted a rocket fired by Gaza militants at the city of Ashkelon, the military said.

The attacks were the deadliest against Israelis since a gunman killed eight civilians in Jerusalem in 2008. They suggested that Egypt’s recent political upheaval and a resulting power vacuum in Sinai had allowed militants to open a new front against Israel on the long-quiet frontier.

The attack began shortly after noon in southern Israel with gunfire at a civilian bus heading toward the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, currently at the height of the tourist season.

A number of passengers were hit, the military said. The gunmen had crossed the border and set up an ambush along a 300-yard (meter) strip, armed with automatic weapons, grenades and suicide bomb belts, according to the military.

“We heard a shot and saw a window explode. I didn’t really understand what was happening at first,” passenger Idan Kaner told Israel’s Channel 2 TV. “After another shot, there was chaos in the bus and everyone jumped on everyone else.”

Within an hour, gunmen had riddled another passing bus and two cars with bullets and rigged a roadside bomb that detonated under an army jeep rushing to the scene. At the same time, mortar gunners in Gaza opened fire at soldiers along the Gaza-Israel border fence.

TV video showed the first bus with its windows shattered. Its seats were stained with blood and luggage littered the aisle.

The Israeli dead included six civilians and one soldier, according to the Israeli military’s southern commander, Maj. Gen. Tal Russo.

Israeli soldiers eventually killed five attackers, the military said, and defense officials said three of the bodies were wired with explosives. It was not clear how many militants were involved or where they were from.

According to the Israeli military, during the fighting along the border the gunmen tried and failed to shoot down an Israeli helicopter with an anti-tank missile.

Roadblocks were erected in the area, sealing roads in and out of Eilat, and senior Israeli security officials convened an emergency session at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

Hours later, militants who had apparently gone undetected attacked again.

Israeli media said at least one Israeli was wounded.

Israel said the attackers had come from Gaza and made their way into neighboring Sinai and from there into Israel.

“Today we all witnessed an attempt to step up terror by attacking from Sinai. If anyone thinks Israel will live with that, he is mistaken,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Thursday. “If the terror organizations think they can strike at our civilians without a response, they will find that Israel will exact a price - a very heavy price.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned what she called “premeditated acts of terrorism against innocent civilians,” and said the U.S. and Israel were “united in the fight against terror.”

Clinton added that the violence “only underscores our strong concerns about the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula,” and urged the Egyptian government to find “a lasting solution.”

Late Thursday, Egypt’s official news agency said masked militants in pickup trucks opened fire on an Egyptian police checkpoint near el-Arish in northern Sinai, the latest security incident in the desert. There was no immediate word of casualties.

Taher Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government, denied the militants’ complicity, saying Gaza “has nothing to do with these attacks.”

But the Israeli military said the attacks had been executed by a Hamas-linked group known as the Popular Resistance Committees, and that their objective had been to kidnap civilians or soldiers. The group was involved in the capture of an Israeli soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who has been held captive in Gaza for more than five years.

An Israeli airstrike on Gaza killed five members of the group, including its commander, as well as the 3-year-old child of one of the militants, according to Hamas security officials.

A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Abu Mujahid, would not comment on its alleged complicity. He threatened retaliation for the deaths of the group’s members.

Though it seemed clear the gunmen had come through Egyptian territory, Gen. Khaled Fouda, the governor of the southern Sinai district, said no shooting had come from the Egyptian side.

“The incident underscores the weak Egyptian hold on Sinai and the broadening of the activities of terrorists,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. “The real source of the terror is in Gaza, and we will act against them with full force and determination.”

The Sinai desert, dominated by Bedouin tribes and never entirely under the control of the central government, have grown more violent since a popular uprising toppled longtime Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak in February. Since then, assailants have repeatedly blown up a crucial pipeline carrying natural gas to Israel and Jordan.

Egypt moved thousands of troops into the area last week as part of a major operation against al-Qaida-inspired militants who have been increasingly active there since Mubarak’s ouster.

Most of the routine traffic across the remote, mountainous border involves Bedouin smugglers ferrying drugs and African asylum seekers into Israel.

There is a thriving smuggling trade between Sinai and Gaza through tunnels under the border, and goods and people can move in both directions. If the attackers were from Gaza, they could have reached Sinai through the tunnels and then crossed the Israel-Egypt border, which is largely unfenced, making their way toward Eilat, which is 130 miles (200 kilometers) from Gaza.