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Israel Launches Triple Attack on Gaza Strip
GAZA CITY, Sept 15 (News Agencies) - Israeli occupation forces launched an air, sea and land assault on Palestinian positions in the Gaza Strip Saturday, with attacks aimed at Rafah in the south, the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central region and Gaza City in the north, news agencies reported.
Palestinian security sources said that Israeli helicopter gunships launched missiles against Gaza City, destroying a Palestinian intelligence headquarters building, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
In Rafah, near the Egyptian border, anti-tank missiles struck a Palestinian police station.
In Nusseirat, Israeli warships shelled Palestinian positions, the sources said.
The triple attack injured seven Palestinians, including one seriously - three in Gaza City, three in Rafah, and one in Nusseirat, Palestinian hospital sources said.
A BBC correspondent in Gaza City reported that a plume of smoke now hangs over the area.
The Israeli army confirmed the attacks. "The Israeli army attacked today in the afternoon targets of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip," an army spokesman said in a statement.
The statement further stated that, "the targets were a Palestinian military intelligence headquarters in Zeitun [a Gaza City neighborhood], an observation post of the Palestinian navy police in Nusseirat and a Palestinian police headquarters in Rafah."
Shortly before the simultaneous attacks, Israeli tanks and bulldozers staged a 500-meter invasion into autonomous Palestinian territory in Qarara, east of the central Gaza Strip Gush Katif settlement bloc, the same sources said.
Israeli occupying forces carried out two other operations into autonomous Palestinian territory overnight; one in the West Bank town of Ramallah and the other in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun, injuring a total of eight Palestinians, one of them seriously.
Early Saturday, two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli occupation soldiers near the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip in circumstances that have yet to be determined.
Since the dramatic attacks on New York and Washington, which killed thousands of people Tuesday, Israel has been tightening its grip on the Occupied Territories and stepping up already aggressive military operations.
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