Gaza: Islamic Jihad's Al-Shami Survives F16 Strike

Several Injured, Including Children, in Renewed Israeli Assassination Attempt

Al-Shami Survives F-16 Strike

A senior Islamic Jihad leader survived an Israeli extra-judicial assassination bid when an F-16 fighter jet bombed a residential building close to his in al-Shujaya neighborhood in Gaza City Monday morning.

Abdullah al-Shami survived the assassination attempt when the fighter jet bombed a house 200 meters away from his, witnesses say. Initial reports say six Palestinians were injured, including two children, aged two and three. Most of the two-storey house was destroyed.

The Israeli military denied that the Jihad spokesman was the target of the early morning raid. Instead, it claims it was targeting a Hamas weapons-making factory.

Israel has consistently pursued a series of extra-judicial assassination, which, according to Palestinian sources, have left 279 Palestinians dead, including 132 civilians, of those, 32 were children and 25 were women.

The raid comes several hours after three Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) were killed and another seriously injured in an ambush just outside of the city of Ramallah.

According to IOF sources, the soldiers were killed when Palestinian gunmen ambushed them while they were on foot patrol near the illegal settlement of Ofra and the village of Ein Yabroud.

Following the incident, IOF troops conducted house-to-house searches in the Palestinian village and Israeli ministers called again for the “removal” of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack and not Islamic Jihad. Analysts say the assassination attempt on Al-Shami’s life was thus not related to he ambush Sunday night.

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