"Israeli air strikes kill 2 in Gaza tunnel" by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters | May 3, 2009
Israeli warplanes bombed tunnels beneath the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt yesterday. Israel said the tunnels are often used for smuggling weapons into Gaza. (Eyad Baba/ Associated Press)
GAZA CITY - Israeli warplanes bombed tunnels beneath the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt yesterday, killing two Palestinians, after militants fired several mortars at Israel from the coastal territory, medical workers said.
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Medical workers who reached the area hours after the attacks said they had recovered the bodies of two Palestinian men involved in digging the subterranean passages....
Kept away by Israel?
The men were the first fatalities in Israeli-Palestinian violence since March, when an Israeli missile killed a Palestinian.... An Israeli military spokesman said yesterday's strikes targeted three tunnels near the town of Rafah. Israel had resumed aerial attacks on the tunnels Friday after a nearly two-month hiatus in fighting, after it said a rocket fired from Gaza struck inside Israel. Israel said three mortars were fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, causing no casualties. The Palestinian Resistance Committees, a Gaza militant group, claimed it fired the mortars yesterday....
Violence also was reported yesterday in the occupied West Bank, where two Palestinian men were shot and wounded in clashes with Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers, Palestinian medical workers said.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Zionist Settlers' Rampage
The two sustained moderate injuries in the clashes, which erupted in a village near the town of Bethlehem, where tensions have risen since the killing of a settler boy from a neighboring Jewish enclave. An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse Palestinian protesters at the site.
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