ISRAEL: Only hours after Israeli troops occupied a short strip of Gaza coastline early yesterday morning in what ultimately turned out to be a false alarm over a weapons-smuggling operation via the sea, Israel cancelled a high-level ministerial meeting with the Palestinians citing the ongoing violence in the Strip.
With flares lighting up the night sky, Israeli helicopters and patrol boats unleashed their weapons on what they thought were barrels floating in the Mediterranean surf, and which they feared were filled with weapons. But on closer inspection the troops discovered that they had been firing at a bunch of fridges dumped at sea.
Palestinians regularly try to smuggle weapons into the Strip through underground tunnels that lead from the Egyptian side of the border into Rafah at the southern tip of Gaza. Maritime smuggling is less common, but there have been attempts in the past to ferret weapons into the Palestinian-controlled areas in Gaza via the sea.
In January, Israeli naval commandos captured the Karine A weapons ship in the Red Sea, loaded with 50 tons of munitions, which Israel said was destined for Gaza.
Two Palestinians were killed yesterday in the territories. Palestinians said a man was shot dead by troops in Gaza as he approached an army position on his bicycle. The military said the man tried to climb onto an army post. In Jenin, in the West Bank, Palestinians said a 32-year-old man was killed when his home was hit by a tank shell.
In cancelling his meeting with Palestinian Interior Minister Mr Abdel Razeq Yehiyeh - further Israeli troop redeployments were to be on the agenda - the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, pointed specifically to the firing of a mortar shell on Tuesday night in Gaza, which caused serious damage to a house in one of the Jewish settlements but did not inflict any injuries.
Israeli defence sources said Mr Ben-Eliezer had been expected to tell the Palestinians that a troop withdrawal from the West Bank town of Hebron was not imminent. Since a new security agreement between the two sides went into effect 10 days ago, the only place where troops have redeployed so far is in the biblical town of Bethlehem.