Israel fires missiles into Gaza Strip

Mon., July 5, 2004

Associated Press

NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Israeli commission debuts Web site

Israel offered a faint glimpse into its secretive nuclear program Sunday when its atomic energy commission launched a Web site.

But Internet surfers hoping to find details of the country's nuclear secrets or even a clear picture of the reactors will be disappointed.

Until now, Israel has kept its two nuclear facilities shrouded in secrecy, saying only that it would not be the first country to introduce such weapons in the region.

The Web site comes days before Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency, is to arrive in Israel for a visit. ElBaradei is expected to press Israel for at least tacit acknowledgment it has nuclear weapons or means to make them.

JERUSALEM – Israeli helicopters fired three missiles Sunday at a Palestinian metal workshop in the Jebaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, witnesses said.

Medics said three people were treated for minor injuries.

Three more missiles were fired in an attack on another metal workshop in Gaza City. Hospital staff said three bystanders were wounded, none critically. The same building was the target of an air strike on June 29, the day after a Palestinian rocket attack killed two Israelis in the border town of Sderot.

The Israeli army said Sunday’s raids were against targets used by the militant Islamic Hamas group “and other terror organizations” to manufacture rockets and other weapons.

Also Sunday, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service warned that Jewish extremists are becoming more militant as some prominent rabbis encourage settlers to resist evacuation from their homes.

Violence continued in the Palestinian territories as an Israeli motorist and a Palestinian gunman were killed in separate shootings in the West Bank, and a Palestinian teenager was shot to death in the Gaza Strip.

Also, Israeli border police killed a Palestinian laborer just west of Jerusalem.

The warning from Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter came as Israel prepares to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four isolated settlements in the West Bank. The evacuations will affect some 7,500 Jewish settlers in Gaza and about 500 of the 230,000 residents of West Bank settlements.

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Israel fires missiles into Gaza Strip

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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