Tensions rise after Israeli shells kill Palestinians

Israeli artillery fire targeting the Gaza Strip on June 9 killed at least seven Palestinian civilians and wounded 30 others, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said. The beach was packed with picnicking families enjoying the Muslim day of rest, and the explosions landed among them, scattering body parts along the dunes. Bloodstained baby carriages and shredded holiday tents were left strewn on the sand near Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, after the late-afternoon strike that included the killing of the parents and children of one family. Television footage showed a woman and a child laying dead on the sand, and another child screaming in agony while a lifeless man was carried away by an ambulance crew. In harrowing scenes one distraught Palestinian girl was filmed among the bloodstained debris, screaming: "Father, father." One man wept as he held the limp body of what appeared to be a girl or young woman, shouting: "Muslims, look at this." The Israeli Army was shelling a target area popular with rocket launchers 400 yards from the beach. The army believes that a shell fell short or that a dud, previously fired, exploded. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reacted angrily, calling the killings inexcusable and declaring three days of mourning. "Men, women, children and elderly people are being massacred in front of the world's eyes," he said. "We call upon the world to intervene immediately to stop all these aggressions." "No doubt what's going on in Gaza is a bloody massacre against our people, our civilians, without discrimination," he said. "I call upon the international community, the UN security council, the quartet [the EU, the US, Russia and the UN], to put an end to this Israeli killing policy." It is believed that the Israelis were targeting militants who launched rockets into Israel in revenge for the killing of Jamal Abu Samadhana, a senior militant figure, in an airstrike the night before. Samadhana was the head of the Popular Resistance Committee and a prominent ally of the ruling Hamas government. The shells that hit Beit Lahiya beach were the latest of more than 6,000 fired into the Gaza Strip by Israel over the past two months. Human rights groups have described the persistent Israeli shelling as a form of collective punishment, particularly after the military changed its rules to allow shells to explode within 100 yards of a built-up area. Five Israeli human rights organizations have demanded an urgent end to the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli security forces. Hamas's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned that it would no longer abide by a cease-fire with Israel it last agreed to in March 2005. Before dawn on June 10, the group launched more than a dozen rockets toward Israel, although there were no reports of injuries. The following day, Palestinian militants fired more than 20 homemade rockets toward the southern Israeli town of Sderot, including one that hit a school and critically wounded a man, hospital officials. A second man was lightly wounded in a separate rocket attack, officials said. Hamas claimed responsibility for most of the rockets. In response to the attacks, Israel killed two Hamas militants in an airstrike. A member of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was killed in a separate incident in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya. There are conflicting reports of how he died. One says he was killed in an Israeli airstrike, another says he was killed by an explosion in his home unrelated to any attack. Date set for Palestinian referendum Abbas moved ahead on June 10 with a referendum on the shape of a future Palestinian state, setting July 26 as the date for a vote that he suggested is the only way to end economic sanctions crippling the Palestinian government. The document, presented last month by leaders of Hamas, Fatah and other Palestinian factions who are in Israeli prisons, endorses the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. It also calls for internal political reforms, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes inside Israel, and confining armed operations against Israel to the occupied territories, among other items. The referendum implicitly recognizes Israel as a separate state, the first time the Palestinian people will be asked to decide on such a fundamental issue. Without such recognition, Israel will not even consider beginning peace talks with the Palestinians. "I am convinced that at the time we agree to this document, the siege against us must end," Abbas said. "No one will be able to defend the principles behind this siege afterward." But the referendum is seen as undermining the mandate of the democratically elected Hamas government, which refuses to recognize Israel, and draws the Palestinians closer to civil war. Abbas's announcement brought immediate condemnation from his rivals in Hamas. "It was a declaration of a coup against the government," said Mushir al-Masri, a leading Hamas legislator, as he urged Palestinians to boycott the vote. "Whoever announced the referendum should shoulder the responsibility for the dangerous consequences that may result." The group's officials warned that pushing ahead with a vote at a time of increasing Israeli military operations would exacerbate fighting between supporters of Hamas and of Abbas's Fatah party that has killed or wounded more than a dozen people in recent weeks. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas had appealed to Abbas to drop the referendum and continue national dialogue instead. In further signs of tension between Palestinian factions, two key militants have withdrawn their support for the document. Hamas's Abdul Khaleq Natsha and Bassam al-Sadi of Islamic Jihad–both prisoners in Israeli jails–accused Abbas of seeking to exploit it for political gain. Aides to Abbas said the result of the referendum would dictate the fate of the Hamas administration. They said a less than overwhelming yes vote, particularly combined with a low turnout, would cause the president to call an early election. A large majority in favor of the prisoners' document would result in Abbas demanding that Hamas accept the outcome and modify its policies accordingly. If it does not, the president has the power to dissolve the government and replace it with one from his own Fatah party and call new elections several months from now. But the aides concede that if Abbas loses the vote he will probably have to resign. A recent poll showed that 77 percent of Palestinians support the prisoners' document.