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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Israels bombs Gaza border - Malaysiakini

An Israeli warplane on Thursday bombed an area of the Gaza Strip border known to contain smuggling tunnels to Egypt. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

GAZA CITY - AN ISRAELI warplane on Thursday bombed an area of the Gaza Strip border known to contain smuggling tunnels to Egypt, witnesses and the Israeli military said.

'An aerial attack took place against a site used to manufacture weapons in an area of the city of Rafah following the firing of a rocket into southern Israel in the evening,' an Israeli army spokesman told AFP.

Witnesses said the attack took place in eastern Rafah, an area known to contain smuggling tunnels, and that no one was injured.

Earlier the Israeli military said a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip towards the town of Ofakim, which fell in an unpopulated area.

The rocket attack was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction.

Earlier on Tuesday, the ruling Islamist movement Hamas said it had fired several mortar rounds at Israeli troops making an incursion into the Gaza Strip.

The first major violation of the truce which ended Israel's 22-day onslaught against Hamas in the Gaza Strip took place on Tuesday, when Palestinian militants killed an Israeli soldier in a bomb blast near the border.

Israel retaliated with gunfire that left one man dead, an air strike that wounded three and bombing raids on border smuggling tunnels. -- AFP

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