JABALIYA, GAZA STRIP — Israel said Sunday that it had called off a planned aerial bombardment of a Palestinian militant's home after about 200 of his supporters, in a new defensive tactic, rushed to form a human shield around the residence.
The mass mobilization in the Gaza Strip is believed to be the first employed by Palestinians to prevent an Israeli airstrike. It is part of a growing use of civilians, including women and children, to counter an Israeli offensive aimed at halting rocket fire into Israel from Gaza.
Israeli officials said the tactic spells a new difficulty for their 5-month-old offensive, which largely has been ineffective.
Saved by the action late Saturday night was the home of Mohammed Wael Baroud, identified by both sides as an operative of the Popular Resistance Committees who has overseen some of the ongoing rocket attacks. Israel considers him a wanted terrorist.
Capt. Noa Meir, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the military targeted the home as part of a "terrorist infrastructure" but canceled the planned airstrike because of the large crowd.
She said the military would continue fighting to root out weapons caches and logistical centers of Baroud's organization, as well as those of Islamic Jihad and the armed wing of the Hamas movement that leads the Palestinian Authority.
All three militant groups are involved in launching crude Kassam rockets, nearly 1,000 of which have fallen in or near Israeli cities and towns this year. On Sunday, one rocket wounded a taxi driver in Sderot, near the border with Gaza. Another killed a 70-year-old woman there Wednesday.
At midday Sunday, an Israeli aircraft attacked a car carrying two Hamas gunmen in Gaza City, killing an 80-year-old man and wounding six other passersby, hospital officials said. The Hamas members, identified by Israel as rocket makers, escaped unharmed, fleeing on foot into a nearby mosque after the first missile missed the car.
The Israeli army often attacks the vehicles of Palestinian militants without warning, aiming to kill, but says it routinely orders occupants out of targeted buildings before striking, in case civilians are among them.
Such a warning came by telephone to Baroud's two-story home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, giving the 15 members of his and his brothers' families half an hour to get out.
