Palestinian family killed on Gaza beach

Israeli firing kills Palestinians

Friday 09 June 2006 3:07 PM GMT

Israel has stepped up air strikes against Palestinian fighters

Israeli artillery shells have struck a group of civilians during a
family picnic at a Gaza beach, killing nine people, including three
children, and wounding more than 25 others, Palestinian medical
officials said.

The artillery shells were fired on Friday by Israeli gunboats stationed
just off the Mediterranean coast.

The barrage scattered body parts along the beach. A tent was destroyed,
and bloody sheets were scattered about. A crowd quickly flocked to the
are, screaming and running around in confusion.

One tearful man held the limp body of what appeared to be a girl or
young woman. "Muslims, look at this," he shouted.

Medical officials said the dead included a woman and three children, as
well as a man and two teenagers.

Also on Friday, an Israeli air strike near Gaza City wounded several
Palestinians, witnesses said, after a series of earlier Israeli strikes
and shellings killed nine.

Palestinian officials said the air strike killed a man travelling in a
car. There were no details on the identity of the man, and the Israeli
army said it was investigating the report.

Rising death toll

The air strike raised the death toll in Israeli attacks on Friday to 13
Palestinians. At least nine civilians were among the dead, according to
Palestinian officials.

Three Palestinians were killed in an earlier air strike on a car in the
northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.

In the first of day's Israeli missile strikes, a Palestinian from the
Popular Resistance Committees who was preparing to fire rockets into
southern Israel, was wounded, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

The committees said the rockets were being fired in retaliation for
Israel's killing overnight of Jamal Abu Samhadana, a leader of the group.

Samhadana and three others were killed in an Israeli air strike on a
training camp for militia members near Rafah in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Hours after his death, two rockets were fired by Palestinians in Gaza at
the Israeli town of Sderot, but did not cause any casualties.

Commander's funeral

Thousands of Palestinians gathered to show their support for Samhadana
at his funeral in Rafah on Friday.

"Abu Ataya, we will deliver our answer in Tel Aviv," chanted hundreds of
armed Palestinians before unleashing a volley of gunfire into the air.

A member of the PRC said in a speech to the crowd: "Abu Ataya is the
Zarqawi of Palestine," - a reference to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the
al-Qaeda chief in Iraq who was killed on Wednesday by the US.

Samhadana was an ally of the Hamas government and had been appointed to
head a new security force.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, blocked the appointment amid
the political tensions between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah faction, and
Samhadana did not take up the position.

The Hamas government said Samhadana's killing was a "war crime" against
a "national leader".

Dangerous step

Ghazi Hamad, a government spokesman, said: "Israel's targeting of a
government official is a dangerous step.

"Israel is responsible for the consequences of this crime and the
response from the resistance."

The Israeli military said that Abu Samhadana was a legitimate target.

"The PRC terror organisation, under the personal instruction and
direction of Abu Samhadana, is responsible for a variety of terror
attacks against Israeli civilians," the army said in a statement.

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