More Gaza Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes
Palestinian officials say at least eight people were killed by latest attacks. A funeral is held for Hamas leader Nizar Rayan.
Reporting from Gaza City and Jerusalem — Israeli airstrikes killed at least eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip today, including three young children, Palestinian officials said, amid mounting speculation that a land invasion of the coastal territory would begin soon.
As warplanes swooped overhead, supporters of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for 18 months, laid to rest one of the movement's senior spiritual and military leaders in a public funeral. Nizar Rayan and most of his family were killed in an Israeli missile strike Thursday.
Hamas and other Palestinian factions continued their daily rocket launches toward southern Israeli towns, striking several buildings but causing only minor injuries.
A week of steady Israeli missile launches has killed more than 420 Palestinians and injured an estimated 2,000, according to local medical sources. Rocket launches by Gazan militants continue to extend their range deeper into the Jewish state and have killed three Israeli civilians and one soldier.
The ongoing violence, and the threat of a bloody infantry and tank invasion, has roiled Palestinian public opinion, and Israel braced for a backlash today. Protesters in Arab East Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank clashed both with Israeli soldiers and security forces from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which is run by the Fatah faction, Hamas' bitter rival.
Palestinian Authority police violently disrupted a large pro-Hamas demonstration in the center of the West Bank city of Ramallah, while Israeli soldiers used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades against rock-throwing youth in several West Bank towns.
ashraf.khalil@latimes.com
