Israeli army splits Gaza in three

GAZA - The Israeli army has split Gaza into three parts and shut its border with Egypt hours after Palestinian militants fired a fresh round of crude rockets at an Israeli town, causing alarm but no injuries.

Israeli armoured forces also swept again into Gaza's Rafah refugee camp and demolished 13 dwellings, leaving 100 people homeless, residents said. The army said it conducted a "pinpoint operation" against militant hideouts and gun nests.

Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces blocked off the main highway where it runs past Jewish settlements in occupied northern and southern parts of the coastal territory, and closed its Rafah border terminal with Egypt.

Israeli military sources confirmed the clampdown and said it was responding to warnings of further Palestinian attacks.

Witnesses said an Israeli army bulldozer shielded by a tank also tore up a section of Gaza's Mediterranean seaboard road near Netzarim settlement, barring passage to Palestinian cars.

Israeli forces have periodically imposed internal closures in Gaza, a sliver-like territory where 8,000 settlers live in fortified enclaves among 1.3 million Palestinians, to try to kill or capture militants waging an almost 4-year-old revolt.

Violence has risen in the region since Israel's cabinet approved in principle a plan to withdraw from Gaza in 2005, with the two sides locked in a test of strength hoping to prevent the other from claiming victory once settlers are evacuated.

The army said militants fired two makeshift Qassam rockets across the border into the Israeli town of Sderot on Thursday morning in the latest in scores of such attacks. No one was injured and no serious damage was caused.

Militants also launched several mortars into the Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza but there were no casualties.

Israeli forces besieged the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, opposite Sderot, earlier this year to flush out elusive rocket squads. They pulled out after one month, leaving a trail of flattened buildings and citrus orchards.


- REUTERS