Incident

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Incident

Israel warning over Gaza protest

25 February 2008 10:14 (UTC +04:00)

Three Hamas fighters were killed by Israeli air strikes near Gazaâ€™s border on Sunday, the militant group said.
Tens of thousands of Gazan women and children are expected to form a human chain stretching the length of the coastal teritory in Mondayâ€™s protest.
Protest organisers say they have no intention of breaching the border.
Israelâ€™s Haaretz newspaper reported there are fears of casualties if the troops try to halt the demonstration.
"Israel will not intervene in demonstrations inside the Gaza Strip but it will ensure the defence of its territory and prevent any violation of its sovereign borders," said a joint statement released by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
"Israel will work to avoid a deterioration of the situation but declares unequivocally that Hamas must assume full responsibility if that happens," said the statement.
Mondayâ€™s demonstration has been organised by the Popular Anti-Siege Committee, a pro-Hamas group.
"We do not have intentions of approaching the fence, either in the north or the south," said protest organiser Jamal Khudari.
"We hope all the participants will abide by the instructions and we will try to prevent any violations."
Hamas has said it backs the demonstration but did not organise it.
Hamas-controlled schools across the coastal enclave have given pupils time off to take part in the human chain protest.
An Israeli security source said the army was preparing for "all scenarios", Reuters reported.
"Obviously, if gunmen start shooting at the fence we will have to respond in kind and we are absolutely unwilling to countenance a situation where the fence is breached like it was at Rafah," Reuters reported the source as saying.
Last month, thousands of Gazans crossed the border into Egypt at Rafah, after militants blew holes in the frontier fence.
In Sundayâ€™s airstrikes, two Hamas fighters were killed near the Israeli border in Khan Younes, and another died in northern Gaza, the group said. Israeli forces also detained 40 Palestinians and said they had discovered five smuggling tunnels along the territoryâ€™s frontier.
Israeli authorities fear a repetition of scenes from last month, when the fence separating Gaza from Egypt was demolished by Palestinian militants in several places near the Rafah crossing point.
Hundreds of thousands of Gazans poured through the breaches to buy essential goods before the border was resealed several days later.
Hamas officials have since raised the possibility of similar breaches along the border with Israel.
Israelâ€™s blockade of Gaza was imposed after the Islamist Hamas party routed secular Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas last June and seized control of the Gaza Strip.
Israel said the siege, which has prevented the flow of everything but essential humanitarian supplies, was in response to cross-border rocket attacks by militants in Gaza.
But Palestinians and several international agencies have said the sanctions amount to collective punishment of Gazaâ€™s 1.5 million civilians.